THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

RIVERSIDE 


NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 


NOTES  ON  LIFE 
AND  LETTERS 

BY 
JOSEPH  CONRAD 


GARDEN  CITY  NEW  YORK 

DOUBLEDAY,  PAGE  &  COMPANY 

1923 


COPYRIGHT,   192T,  BY 

DOUBLEDAY,  PAGE  &  COMPANY 

ALL   RIGHTS    RESERVED,    INCLUDING    THAT    OF   TRANSLATION 

INTO   FOREIGN    LANGUAGES,    INCLUDING   THE   SCANDINAVIAN 

COPYRIGHT,   1904,  BY  NORTH  AMERICAN  REVIEW  CORPORATIOH 
COPYRIGHT,  1920,  BY  GEORGE  H.  DORAN  COMPANY 

rRINTED  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 

AT 

THE  COUNTRY  LIFE  PRESS,  GARDEN  CiTY,  H.  Y. 


AUTHOR'S  NOTE 

I  don't  know  whether  I  ought  to  offer  an  apology 
for  this  collection  which  has  more  to  do  with  life  than 
with  letters.     Its  appeal  is  made  to  orderly  minds. 
This,  to  be  frank  about  it,  is  a  process  of  tidying  up, 
which,  from  the  nature  of  things,  cannot  be  regarded 
as  premature.     The  fact  is  that  I  wanted  to  do  it  myself 
because  of  a  feeling  that  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  con- 
siderations of  worthiness  or  unworthiness  of  the  small 
(but  unbroken)  pieces  collected  within  the  covers  of  this 
volume.     Of  course  it  may  be  said  that  I  might  have 
taken  up  a  broom  and  used  it  without  saying  anything 
about  it.     That  certainly  is  one  way  of  tidying  up. 
But  it  would  have  been  too  much  to  have  expected 
^.    me  to  treat  all  this  matter  as  removable  rubbish.     All 
those  things  had  a  place  in  my  life.     Whether  any  of 
^     them  deserve  to  have  been  picked  up  and  ranged  on 
^     the  shelf — this  shelf — I  cannot  say,  and,  frankly,  I  have 
^     not  allowed  my  mind  to  dwell  on  the  question.     I  was 
^     afraid   of   thinking  myself   into   a  mood  that  would 
'^     hurt  my  feelings;  for  those  pieces  of  writing,  whatever 
^     may  be  the  comment  on  their  display,  appertain  to  the 
>^^  character  of  the  man. 

And  so  here  they  are,  dusted,  which  was  but  a  decent 

U^    thing  to  do,  but  in  no  way  polished,  extending  from  the 

4    the  year  '98  to  the  year  '20,  a  thin  array  (for  such  a 

c\    stretch  of  time)  of  really  innocent  attitudes:    Conrad 

literary,  Conrad  political,  Conrad  reminiscent,  Conrad 


vl  AUTHOR'S  NOTE 

controversial.  Well,  yes!  A  one-man  show — or  is  it 
merely  the  show  of  one  man? 

The  only  thing  that  will  not  be  found  amongst  those 
Figures  and  Things  that  have  passed  away,  will  be 
Conrad  en  'pantoufles.  It  is  constitutional  inability. 
Schlafrock  und  pantqffeln!  Not  that !  Never !  .  .  . 
I  don't  know  whether  I  dare  boast  like  a  certain  South 
American  general  who  used  to  say  that  no  emergency  of 
war  or  peace  had  ever  found  him  "with  his  boots  off;" 
but  I  may  say  that  whenever  the  various  periodicals 
mentioned  in  this  book,  called  on  me  to  come  out  and 
blow  the  trumpet  of  personal  opinions  or  strike  the 
pensive  lute  that  speaks  of  the  past,  I  always  tried  to 
pull  on  my  boots  first.  I  didn't  want  to  do  it,  God 
knows!  Their  Editors,  to  whom  I  beg  to  offer  my 
thanks  here,  made  me  perform  mainly  by  kindness  but 
partly  by  bribery.  Well,  yes!  Bribery.  Wliatcanyou 
expect.^  I  never  pretended  to  be  better  than  the  people 
in  the  next  street  or  even  in  the  same  street. 

This  volume  (including  these  embarrassed  introduc- 
tory remarks)  is  as  near  as  I  shall  ever  come  to  deshabille 
in  public;  and  perhaps  it  will  do  something  to  help 
towards  a  better  vision  of  the  man,  if  it  gives  no  more 
than  a  partial  view  of  a  piece  of  his  back,  a  little  dusty 
(after  the  process  of  tidying  up),  a  little  bowed,  and  re- 
ceding from  the  world  not  because  of  weariness  or  misan- 
thropy but  for  other  reasons  that  cannot  be  helped: 
because  the  leaves  fall,  the  water  flows,  the  clock  ticks 
with  that  horrid  pitiless  solemnity  which  you  must  have 
observed  in  the  ticking  of  the  hall  clock  at  home.  For 
reasons  like  that.  Yes!  It  recedes.  And  this  was  the 
chance  to  afford  one  more  view  of  it — even  to  my  own 
eyes. 

The  section  within  this  volume  called  Letters  ex- 
plains itself  though  I  do  not  pretend  to  say  that  it 


AUTHOR'S  NOTE  vii 

justifies  its  o\^ti  existence.  It  claims  nothing  in  its 
defence  except  the  right  of  speech  which  I  beheve  be- 
longs to  everybody  outside  a  Trappist  monastery.  The 
part  I  have  ventured,  for  shortness'  sake,  to  call  Life, 
may  perhaps  justify  itself  by  the  emotional  sincerity  cf 
the  feelings  to  which  the  various  papers  included  under 
that  head  owe  their  origin.  And  as  they  relate  to 
events  of  which  everyone  has  a  date,  they  are  in  the 
nature  of  sign-posts  pointing  out  the  direction  my 
thoughts  were  compelled  to  take  at  the  various  cross- 
roads. If  anybody  detects  any  sort  of  consistency  in 
the  choice  this  will  be  only  proof  positive  that  wisdom 
had  nothing  to  do  with  it.  WTiether  right  or  wrong, 
instinct  alone  is  invariable;  a  fact  which  only  adds  a 
deeper  shade  to  its  inherent  mystery.  The  appearance 
of  intellectuality  these  pieces  may  present  at  first  sight 
is  m.erely  the  result  of  the  arrangement  of  words.  The 
logic  that  may  be  found  there  is  only  the  logic  of  the 
language.  But  I  need  not  labour  the  point.  There 
will  be  plenty  of  people  sagacious  enough  to  perceive 
the  absence  of  all  wisdom  from  these  pages.  But  I 
believe  sufliciently  in  human  sympathies  to  imagine 
that  very  few  will  question  their  sincerity.  Whatever 
delusions  I  may  have  suffered  from  I  have  had  no  delu- 
sions as  to  the  nature  of  the  facts  commented  on  here. 
I  may  have  misjudged  their  import:  but  that  is  the 
sort  of  error  for  which  one  may  expect  a  certain  amount 
of  toleration. 

The  only  paper  of  this  collection  which  has  never  been 
published  before  is  the  Note  on  the  Polish  Problem.  It 
was  written  at  the  request  of  a  friend  to  be  shown  pri- 
vately, and  its  "Protectorate"  idea,  sprung  from  a 
strong  sense  of  the  critical  nature  of  the  situation,  was 
shaped  by  the  actual  circumstances  of  the  time.  The 
time  was  about  a  month  before  the  entrance  of  Rou- 


viii  AUTHOR'S  NOTE 

mania  Into  the  war,  and  thougli,  honestly,  I  had  seen 
already  the  shadow  of  coming  events  I  could  not  permit 
my  misgivings  to  enter  into  and  destroy  the  structure 
of  my  plan.  I  still  believe  that  there  was  some  sense  in 
it.  It  may  certainly  be  charged  with  the  appearance 
of  lack  of  faith  and  it  lays  itself  open  to  the  throwing 
of  many  stones ;  but  my  object  was  practical  and  I  had 
to  consider  warily  the  preconceived  notions  of  the 
people  to  whom  it  was  implicitly  addressed  and  also 
their  unjustifiable  hopes.  They  were  unjustifiable,  but 
who  was  to  tell  them  that?  I  mean  who  was  wise 
enough  and  convincing  enough  to  show  them  the  inanity 
of  their  mental  attitude.''  The  whole  atmosphere  wag 
poisoned  with  visions  that  were  not  so  much  false  as 
simply  impossible.  They  were  also  the  result  of  vague 
and  unconfessed  fears,  and  that  made  their  strength. 
For  myself,  with  a  very  definite  dread  in  my  heart,  I 
was  careful  not  to  allude  to  their  character  because  I 
did  not  want  the  Note  to  be  thrown  away  unread.  And 
then  I  had  to  remember  that  the  impossible  has  some- 
times the  trick  of  coming  to  pass  to  the  confusion  of 
minds  and  often  to  the  crushing  of  hearts. 

Of  the  other  papers  I  have  nothing  special  to  say. 
They  are  what  they  are,  and  I  am  by  now  too  hardened 
a  sinner  to  feel  ashamed  of  insignificant  indiscretions. 
And  as  to  their  appearance  in  this  form  I  claim  that  in- 
dulgence to  which  all  sinners  against  themselves  are 
entitled. 

1920.  J.  C. 


CONTENTS 
PART  I-LETTERS 


PAGB 


Books S 

Speaker 

Henry  James 11 

North  American  Review 

Alphonse  Daudet 20 

Outlook  ^ 

Guy  de  Maupassant 25 

Anatole  France 32 

(I.)   Speaker:   (II.)   English  Review. 

TURGENEV 45 

Stephen  Crane:  A  Note  without  Dates  .     .       49 
London  Mercury 

Tales  of  the  Sea        53 

Outlook 

An  Observer  in  IVIalaya 58 

Academy 

A  Happy  Wanderer 61 

Daily  Mail 

The  Life  Beyond 66 

Daily  Mail 

The  Ascending  Effort f^l 

Daily  Mail 

is 


X  CONTENTS 

PAGE 

The  Censor  of  Plays 76 

Daily  Mail 

PART  II— LIFE 

Autocracy  and  War         83 

Fortnightly  Review 

The  Crime  of  Partition       ......     115 

Fortnightly  Review 

Note  on  the  Polish  Problem 134 

Poland  Revisited 141 

Daily  News 

First  News 174 

Reveille 

"Well  Done'* 179 

Daily  Chronicle 

Tradition 194 

Daily  Mail 

Confidence '  .     202 

Golden  Daily  Mail 

Flight 209 

Fledgling 

Some  Reflections  on  the  Loss  of  the  "Ti- 
tanic"    213 

English  Review 

Certain  Aspects  of  the  Admirable  Inquiry  .     229 

English  Review 

Protection  of  Ocean  Liners 249 

Illustrated  London  News 

A  Friendly  Place 260 

Daily  Mail 


PART  I 
LETTERS 


NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 


BOOKS 
1905 


"I  HAVE  not  read  this  author's  books,  and  if  I 
have  read  them  I  have  forgotten  what  they  were 
about. " 

These  words  are  reported  as  having  been  uttered  in 
our  midst  not  a  hundred  years  ago,  pubHcly,  from  the 
seat  of  justice,  by  a  civic  magistrate.  The  words  of  our 
municipal  rulers  have  a  solemnity  and  importance  far 
above  the  words  of  other  mortals,  because  our  municipal 
rulers  more  than  any  other  variety  of  our  governors  and 
masters  represent  the  average  wisdom,  temperament, 
sense  and  virtue  of  the  community.  This  generalisa- 
tion, it  ought  to  be  promptly  said  in  the  interests  of 
eternal  justice  (and  recent  friendship),  does  not  apply  to 
the  United  States  of  America.  There,  if  one  may  be- 
lieve the  long  and  helpless  indignations  of  their  daily  and 
weekly  Press,  the  majority  of  municipal  rulers  appear 
to  be  thieves  of  a  particularly  irrepressible  sort.  But 
this  by  the  way.  My  concern  is  with  a  statement 
issuing  from  the  average  temperament  and  the  average 
wisdom  of  a  great  and  wealthy  community,  and  uttered 
by  a  civic  magistrate  obviously  without  fear  and  with- 
out reproach. 


4  NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

I  confess  I  am  pleased  with  his  temper,  which  is  that 
of  prudence.  "I  have  not  read  the  books,"  he  says,  and 
immediately  he  adds,  "and  if  I  have  read  them  I  have 
forgotten."  This  is  excellent  caution.  And  I  like  his 
style:  it  is  unartificial  and  bears  the  stamp  of  manly 
sincerity.  As  a  reported  piece  of  prose  this  declaration 
is  easy  to  read  and  not  difficult  to  believe.  Many  books 
have  not  been  read;  still  more  have  been  forgotten.  As 
a  piece  of  civic  oratory  this  declaration  is  strikingly 
effective.  Calculated  to  fall  in  with  the  bent  of  the 
popular  mind,  so  familiar  with  all  forms  of  forgetful- 
ness,  it  has  also  the  power  to  stir  up  a  subtle  emotion 
while  it  starts  a  train  of  thought — and  what  great 
force  can  be  expected  from  human  speech?  But  it  is 
in  naturalness  that  this  declaration  is  perfectly  de- 
lightful, for  there  is  nothing  more  natural  than  for  a 
grave  City  Father  to  forget  what  the  books  he  has  read 
once — long  ago — in  his  giddy  youth  may  be — were 
about. 

And  the  books  in  question  are  novels,  or,  at  any  rate, 
were  written  as  novels.  I  proceed  thus  cautiously 
(following  my  illustrious  example)  because  being  with- 
out fear  and  desiring  to  remain  as  far  as  possible 
without  reproach,  I  confess  at  once  that  I  have  not 
read  them. 

I  have  not;  and  of  the  million  persons  or  more  who 
are  said  to  have  read  them,  I  never  met  one  yet  with 
the  talent  of  lucid  exposition  sufficiently  developed  to 
give  me  a  connected  account  of  what  they  are  about. 
But  they  are  books,  part  and  parcel  of  humanity,  and 
as  such,  in  tlieir  ever-increasing,  jostling  multitude,  they 
are  worthy  of  regard,  admiration,  and  compassion. 

Especially  of  compassion.  It  has  been  said  a  long 
time  ago  that  books  have  their  fate.  They  have,  and  it 
is  very  much  like  the  destiny  of  man.     They  share  with 


BOOKS  5 

us  the  great  incertitude  of  ignominy  or  glory — of  severe 
justice  and  senseless  persecution — of  calumny  and  mis- 
understanding— the  shame  of  undeserved  success.  Of 
all  the  inanimate  objects,  of  all  men's  creations,  books 
are  the  nearest  to  us,  for  they  contain  our  very  thought, 
our  ambitions,  our  indignations,  our  illusions,  our 
fidelity  to  truth,  and  our  persistent  leaning  towards 
error.  But  most  of  all  they  resemble  us  in  their  pre- 
carious hold  on  life.  A  bridge  constructed  according 
to  the  rules  of  the  art  of  bridge-building  is  certain  of  a 
long,  honourable  and  useful  career.  But  a  book  as 
good  in  its  way  as  the  bridge  may  perish  obscurely  on 
the  very  day  of  its  birth.  The  art  of  their  creators  is 
not  sufficient  to  give  them  more  than  a  moment  of  life. 
Of  the  books  born  from  the  restlessness,  the  inspiration, 
and  the  vanity  of  human  minds  those  that  the  Muses 
would  love  best  lie  more  than  all  others  under  the 
menace  of  an  early  death.  Sometimes  their  defects  will 
save  them.  Sometimes  a  book  fair  to  see  may — to  use 
a  lofty  expression — have  no  individual  soul.  Obviously 
a  book  of  that  sort  cannot  die.  It  can  only  crumble  into 
dust.  But  the  best  of  books  drawing  sustenance  from 
the  sympathy  and  memory  of  men  have  lived  on  the 
brink  of  destruction,  for  men's  memories  are  short,  and 
their  sympathy  is,  we  must  admit,  a  very  fluctuating, 
unprincipled  emotion. 

No  secret  of  eternal  life  for  our  books  can  be  found 
amongst  the  formulas  of  art,  any  more  than  for  our 
bodies  in  a  prescribed  combination  of  drugs.  This  is 
not  because  some  books  are  not  worthy  of  enduring  life, 
but  because  the  formulas  of  art  are  dependent  on  things 
variable,  unstable  and  untrustworthy;  on  human 
sympathies,  on  prejudices,  on  likes  and  dislikes,  on  the 
sense  of  virtue  and  the  sense  of  propriety,  on  beliefs 
and  theories  that,  indestructible  in  themselves,  always 


6  NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

change  their  form — often  in  the  lifetime  of  one  fleeting 
generation. 

n 

Of  all  books,  novels,  which  the  Muses  should  love, 
make  a  serious  claim  on  our  compassion.  The  art  of 
the  novelist  is  simple.  At  the  same  time  it  is  the  most 
elusive  of  all  creative  arts,  the  most  liable  to  be  ob- 
scured by  the  scruples  of  its  servants  and  votaries,  the 
one  pre-eminently  destined  to  bring  trouble  to  the  mind 
and  the  heart  of  the  artist.  After  all,  the  creation  of  a 
world  is  not  a  small  undertaking  except  perhaps  to  the 
divinely  gifted.  In  truth  every  novelist  must  begin 
by  creating  for  himself  a  world,  great  or  httle,  in  which 
he  can  honestly  believe.  This  world  cannot  be  made 
otherwise  than  in  his  own  image:  it  is  fated  to  remain 
individual  and  a  little  mysterious,  and  yet  it  must  re- 
semble something  already  familiar  to  the  experience, 
the  thoughts  and  the  sensations  of  his  readers.  At  the 
heart  of  fiction,  even  the  least  worthy  of  the  name,  some 
sort  of  truth  can  be  found — if  only  the  truth  of  a  child- 
ish theatrical  ardour  in  the  game  of  life,  as  in  the  novels 
of  Dumas  the  father.  But  the  fair  truth  of  human 
delicacy  can  be  found  in  Mr.  Henry  James's  novels; 
and  the  comical,  appalling  truth  of  human  rapacity  let 
loose  amongst  the  spoils  of  existence  lives  in  the  mon- 
strous world  created  by  Balzac.  The  pursuit  of  happi- 
ness by  means  lawful  and  unlawful,  through  resignation 
or  revolt,  by  the  clever  manipulation  of  conventions 
or  by  solemn  hanging  on  to  the  skirts  of  the  latest 
scientific  theory,  is  the  only  theme  that  can  be  legiti- 
mately developed  by  the  novelist  who  is  the  chronicler 
of  the  adventures  of  mankind  amongst  the  dangers  of  the 
kingdom  of  the  earth.  And  the  kingdom  of  this  earth 
itself,  the  ground  upon  which  his  individuahties  stand, 


BOOKS  7 

stumble,  or  die,  must  enter  into  his  scheme  of  faithful 
record.  To  encompass  all  this  in  one  harmonious  con- 
ception is  a  great  feat;  and  even  to  attempt  it  de- 
liberately with  serious  intention,  not  from  the  senseless 
prompting  of  an  ignorant  heart,  is  an  honourable 
ambition.  For  it  requires  some  courage  to  step  in 
calmly  where  fools  may  be  eager  to  rush.  As  a  dis- 
tinguished and  successful  French  novelist  once  observed 
of  fiction,  "C'est  un  art  trop  difficile." 

It  is  natural  that  the  novelist  should  doubt  his  ability 
to  cope  with  his  task.  He  imagines  it  more  gigantic 
than  it  is.  And  yet  literary  creation  being  only  one  of 
the  legitimate  forms  of  human  activity  has  no  value  but 
on  the  condition  of  not  excluding  the  fullest  recognition 
of  all  the  more  distinct  forms  of  action.  This  condition 
is  sometimes  forgotten  by  the  man  of  letters,  who  often, 
especially  in  his  youth,  is  inclined  to  lay  a  claim  of  ex- 
clusive superiority  for  his  own  amongst  all  the  other 
tasks  of  the  human  mind.  The  mass  of  verse  and 
prose  may  glimmer  here  and  there  with  the  glow  of  a 
divine  spark,  but  in  the  sum  of  human  effort  it  has  no 
special  importance.  There  is  no  justificative  formula 
for  its  existence  any  more  than  for  any  other  artistic 
achievement.  With  the  rest  of  them  it  is  destined  to  be 
forgotten,  without,  perhaps,  leaving  the  faintest  trace. 
Where  a  novelist  has  an  advantage  over  the  workers  in 
other  fields  of  thought  is  in  his  privilege  of  freedom — 
the  freedom  of  expression  and  the  freedom  of  confessing 
his  innermost  beliefs — which  should  console  him  for  the 
hard  slavery  of  the  pen. 

Ill 

Liberty  of  imagination  should  be  the  most  pre- 
cious possession  of  a  novelist.    To   try    voluntarily 


8  NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

to  discover  the  fettering  dogmas  of  some  romantic, 
realistic,  or  naturalistic  creed  in  the  free  work  of  its  own 
inspiration,  is  a  trick  worthy  of  human  f>erverseness 
which,  after  inventing  an  absurdity,  endeavours  to  find 
for  it  a  pedigree  of  distmguished  ancestors.  It  is  a 
weakness  of  inferior  minds  when  it  is  not  the  cunning 
device  of  those  who,  uncertain  of  their  talent,  would  seek 
to  add  lustre  to  it  by  the  authority  of  a  school.  Such, 
for  instance,  are  the  high  priests  who  have  proclaimed 
Stendhal  for  a  prophet  of  Naturalism.  But  Stendhal 
himself  would  have  accepted  no  limitation  of  his  free- 
dom. Stendhal's  mind  was  of  the  first  order.  His 
spirit  above  must  be  raging  with  a  peculiarly  Stendhal- 
esque  scorn  and  indignation.  For  the  truth  is  that 
more  than  one  kind  of  intellectual  cowardice  hides  be- 
hind the  literary  formulas.  And  Stendhal  was  pre- 
eminently courageous.  He  wrote  his  two  great  novels, 
which  so  few  people  have  read,  in  a  spirit  of  fearless 
liberty. 

It  must  not  be  supposed  that  I  claim  for  the  artist  in 
fiction  the  freedom  of  moral  Nihilism,  I  would  require 
from  him  many  acts  of  faith  of  which  the  first  would  be 
the  cherishing  of  an  undying  hope;  and  hope,  it  will  not 
be  contested,  implies  all  the  piety  of  effort  and  re- 
nunciation. It  is  the  God-sent  form  of  trust  in  the 
magic  force  and  inspiration  belonging  to  the  life  of  this 
earth.  We  are  inclined  to  forget  that  the  way  of  ex- 
cellence is  in  the  intellectual,  as  distinguished  from 
emotional,  humility.  WTiat  one  feels  so  hopelessly 
barren  in  declared  pessimism  is  just  its  arrogance.  It 
seems  as  if  the  discovery  made  by  many  men  at  various 
times  that  there  is  much  evil  in  the  world  were  a  source 
of  proud  and  unholy  joy  unto  some  of  the  modern 
vvf iters.  That  frame  of  mind  is  not  the  proper  one  in 
which  to  approach  seriously  the  art  of  fiction.    It  gives 


BOOKS  9 

an  author — goodness  only  knows  why — an  elated  sense 
of  his  own  superiority.  And  there  is  nothing  more 
dangerous  than  such  an  elation  to  that  absolute  loyalty 
towards  his  feelings  and  sensations  an  author  should 
keep  hold  of  in  his  most  exalted  moments  of  creation. 
To  be  hopeful  in  an  artistic  sense  it  is  not  necessary  to 
think  that  the  world  is  good.  It  is  enough  to  believe 
that  there  is  no  impossibility  of  its  being  made  so. 
If  the  flight  of  imaginative  thought  may  be  allowed 
to  rise  superior  to  many  moralities  current  amongst 
mankind,  a  novelist  who  would  think  himself  of  a 
superior  essence  to  other  men  would  miss  the  first 
condition  of  his  calling.  To  have  the  gift  of  words  is  no 
such  great  matter.  A  man  furnished  with  a  long-range 
weapon  does  not  become  a  hunter  or  a  warrior  by  the 
mere  possession  of  a  fire-arm;  many  other  qualities 
of  character  and  temperament  are  necessary  to  make 
him  either  one  or  the  other.  Of  him  from  whose 
armoury  of  phrases  one  in  a  hundred  thousand  may 
perhaps  hit  the  far-distant  and  elusive  mark  of  art  I 
would  ask  that  in  his  dealings  with  mankind  he  should 
be  capable  of  giving  a  tender  recognition  to  their  obscure 
virtues.  I  would  not  have  him  impatient  with  their 
small  failings  and  scornful  of  their  errors.  I  would  not 
have  him  expect  too  much  gratitude  from  that  humanity 
whose  fate,  as  illustrated  in  individuals,  it  is  open  to 
him  to  depict  as  ridiculous  or  terrible.  I  would  wish 
him  to  look  with  a  large  forgiveness  at  men's  ideas  and 
prejudices,  which  are  by  no  means  the  outcome  of 
malevolence,  but  depend  on  their  education,  their 
social  status,  even  their  professions.  The  good  artist 
should  expect  no  recognition  of  his  toil  and  no  admira- 
tion of  his  genius,  because  his  toil  can  with  difficulty  be 
appraised  and  his  genius  cannot  possibly  mean  anything 
to  the  ilhterate  who,  even  from  the  dreadful  wisdom  of 


10         NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

their  evoked  dead,  have,  so  far,  culled  nothing  but 
inanities  and  platitudes.  I  would  wish  him  to  en- 
large his  sympathies  by  patient  and  loving  observation 
while  he  grows  in  mental  power.  It  is  in  the  impartial 
practice  of  life,  if  anywhere,  that  the  promise  of  per- 
fection for  his  art  can  be  found,  rather  than  in  the  ab- 
surd formulas  trying  to  prescribe  this  or  that  particular 
method  of  technique  or  conception.  Let  him  mature 
the  strength  of  his  imagination  amongst  the  things  of 
this  earth,  which  it  is  his  business  to  cherish  and  know, 
and  refrain  from  calling  down  his  inspiration  ready- 
made  from  some  heaven  of  perfections  of  which  he 
knows  nothing.  And  I  would  not  grudge  him  the 
proud  illusion  that  will  come  sometimes  to  a  writer :  the 
illusion  that  his  achievement  has  almost  equalled  the 
greatness  of  his  dream.  For  what  else  could  give  him 
the  serenity  and  the  force  to  hug  to  his  breast  as  a  thing 
delightful  and  human,  the  virtue,  tlie  rectitude  and 
sagacity  of  his  own  City,  declaring  with  simple  elo- 
quence through  the  mouth  of  a  Conscript  Father:  "I 
have  not  read  this  author's  books,  and  if  I  have  read 
them  I  have  forgotten     .     .     .     ." 


HENRY  JAMES 

An  Appreciation 
1905 

The  critical  faculty  hesitates  before  the  magnitude 
of  Mr.  Henry  James's  work.  His  books  stand  on  my 
shelves  in  a  place  whose  accessibility  proclaims  the 
habit  of  frequent  communion.  But  not  all  his  books. 
There  is  no  collected  edition  to  date,  such  as  some  of 
"our  masters"  have  been  provided  with;  no  neat  rows 
of  volumes  in  buckram  or  half  calf,  putting  forth  a 
hasty  claim  to  completeness,  and  conveying  to  my 
mind  a  hint  of  finality,  of  a  surrender  to  fate  of  that 
field  in  which  all  these  victories  have  been  won.  Noth- 
ing of  the  sort  has  been  done  for  Mr.  Henry  James's 
victories  in  England. 

In  a  world  such  as  ours,  so  painful  with  all  sorts 
of  wonders,  one  would  not  exhaust  oneself  in  barren 
marvelling  over  mere  bindings,  had  not  the  fact,  or 
rather  the  absence  of  the  material  fact,  prominent  in 
the  case  of  other  men  whose  writing  counts  (for  good  or 
evil) — ^had  it  not  been,  I  say,  expressive  of  a  direct  truth 
spiritual  and  intellectual;  an  accident  of — I  suppose — 
the  publishing  business  acquiring  a  symbolic  meaning 
from  its  negative  nature.  Because,  emphatically,  in 
the  body  of  Mr.  Henry  James's  work  there  is  no  sug- 
gestion of  finality,  nowhere  a  hint  of  surrender,  or  even 
of  probability  of  surrender,  to  his  own  victorious 
achievement  in  that  field  where  he  is  a  master.     Hap)- 

11 


12         NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

pily,  he  will  never  be  able  to  claim  completeness;  and, 
were  he  to  confess  to  it  in  a  moment  of  self-ignorance, 
he  would  not  be  believed  by  the  very  minds  for  whom 
such  a  confession  naturally  would  be  meant.  It  is 
impossible  to  think  of  Mr.  Henry  James  becoming 
"complete"  otherwise  than  by  the  brutality  of  our 
common  fate  whose  finality  is  meaningless — in  the  sense 
of  its  logic  being  of  a  material  order,  the  logic  of  a  falling 
stone. 

I  do  not  know  into  what  brand  of  ink  Mr.  Henry 
James  dips  his  pen;  indeed,  I  heard  that  of  late  he  had 
been  dictating;  but  I  know  that  his  mind  is  steeped  in 
the  waters  flowing  from  the  fountain  of  intellectual 
youth.  The  thmg — a  privilege — a  miracle — what  you 
will — is  not  quite  hidden  from  the  meanest  of  us  who 
run  as  we  read.  To  these  who  have  the  gTace  to  stay 
their  feet  it  is  manifest.  After  some  twenty  years  of 
attentive  acquaintance  with  Mr.  Henry  James's  work, 
it  grows  into  absolute  conviction  which,  all  personal 
feeling  apart,  brings  a  sense  of  happiness  into  one's 
artistic  existence.  If  gratitude,  as  someone  defined  it, 
is  a  lively  sense  of  favours  to  come,  it  becomes  very  easy 
to  be  gTateful  to  the  author  of  "The  Ambassadors" — 
to  name  the  latest  of  his  works.  The  favours  are  sure 
to  come;  the  spring  of  that  benevolence  will  never  run 
dry.  The  stream  of  inspiration  flows  brimful  in  a 
predetermined  direction,  unaffected  by  the  periods 
of  drought,  untroubled  in  its  clearness  by  the  storms  of 
the  land  of  letters,  without  languor  or  violence  in  its 
force,  never  rimnmg  back  upon  itself,  opening  new 
visions  at  every  turn  of  its  course  through  that  richly 
inhabited  country  its  fertility  has  created  for  our 
delectation,  for  our  judgment,  for  our  exploring.  It  is, 
in  fact,  a  magic  spring. 

With   this  phrase  the  metaphor  of  the  perennial 


HENRY  JAMES  13 

spring,  of  the  inextinguishable  youth,  of  running  waters, 
as  applied  to  Mr.  Henry  James's  inspiration,  may  be 
dropped.  In  its  volume  and  force  the  body  of  his  work 
may  be  compared  rather  to  a  majestic  river.  All 
creative  art  is  magic,  is  evocation  of  the  imseen  in  forms 
persuasive,  enlightening,  familiar  and  surprising,  for 
the  edification  of  mankind,  pinned  do\\Ti  by  the  con- 
ditions of  its  existence  to  the  earnest  consideration  of 
the  most  insignificant  tides  of  reality. 

Action  in  its  essence,  the  creative  art  of  a  writer  of 
fiction  may  be  compared  to  rescue  work  carried  out  in 
darkness  against  cross  gusts  of  wind  swaying  the  action 
of  a  great  multitude.  It  is  rescue  work,  this  snatching 
of  vanishing  phases  of  turbulence,  disguised  in  fair 
words,  out  of  the  native  obscurity  into  a  light  where  the 
struggling  forms  may  be  seen,  seized  upon,  endowed 
with  the  only  possible  form  of  permanence  in  this  world 
of  relative  values--the  permanence  of  memory.  And 
the  multitude  feels  it  obscurely  too;  since  the  demand 
of  the  individual  to  the  artist  is,  in  effect,  the  cry 
"Take  me  out  of  myself!"  meaning  really,  out  of  my 
perishable  activity  into  the  light  of  imperishable  con- 
sciousness. But  everything  is  relative,  and  the  light 
of  consciousness  is  only  enduring,  merely  the  most  en- 
during of  the  things  of  this  earth,  imperishable  only  as 
against  the  short-lived  work  of  our  industrious  hands. 

When  the  last  aqueduct  shall  have  crumbled  to 
pieces,  the  last  airship  fallen  to  the  ground,  the  last 
blade  of  grass  have  died  upon  a  dying  earth,  man, 
indomitable  by  his  training  in  resistance  to  misery 
and  pain,  shall  set  this  undiminished  light  of  his  eyes 
against  the  feeble  glow  of  the  sun.  The  artistic  faculty, 
of  which  each  of  us  has  a  minute  grain,  may  find  its 
voice  in  some  individual  of  that  last  group,  gifted  with 
a   power   of    expression    and    courageous    enough    to 


14  NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

interpret  the  ultimate  experience  of  mankind  in  terms 
of  his  tempyerament,  in  terms  of  art.  I  do  not  mean  to 
say  that  he  would  attempt  to  beguile  the  last  moments 
of  humanity  by  an  ingenious  tale.  It  would  be  too 
much  to  expect — from  humanity.  I  doubt  the  heroism 
cf  the  hearers.  As  to  the  heroism  of  the  artist,  no  doubt 
is  necessary.  There  would  be  on  his  part  no  heroism. 
The  artist  in  his  calling  of  interpreter  creates  (the 
clearest  form  of  demonstration)  because  he  must.  He 
is  so  much  of  a  voice  that,  for  him,  silence  is  like  death; 
and  the  postulate  was,  that  there  is  a  group  alive,  clus- 
tered on  his  threshold  to  watch  the  last  flicker  of  light 
on  a  black  sky,  to  hear  the  last  word  uttered  in  the 
stilled  workshop  of  the  earth.  It  is  safe  to  affirm  that, 
if  anybody,  it  will  be  the  imaginative  man  who  would 
be  moved  to  speak  on  the  eve  of  that  day  without 
to-morrow — whether  ia  austere  exhortation  or  in  a 
phrase  of  sardonic  comment,  who  can  guess. ^^ 

For  my  own  part,  from  a  short  and  cursory  acquain- 
tance with  my  kind,  I  am  inclined  to  think  that  the  last 
utterance  will  formulate,  strange  as  it  may  appear,  some 
hope  now  to  us  utterly  inconceivable.  For  mankind  is 
delightful  in  its  pride,  its  assurance,  and  its  indomitable 
tenacity.  It  will  sleep  on  the  battlefield  among  its  own 
dead,  in  the  manner  of  an  army  having  won  a  barren 
victory.  It  will  not  know  vv^hen  it  is  beaten.  And 
perhaps  it  is  right  in  that  quality.  The  victories  are 
not,  perhaps,  so  barren  as  it  may  appear  from  a  purely 
strategical,  utilitarian  point  of  view.  Mr.  Henry 
James  seems  to  hold  that  belief.  Nobody  has  rendered 
better,  perhaps,  the  tenacity  of  temper,  or  known  how 
to  drai>e  the  robe  of  spiritual  honour  about  the  drooping 
form  of  a  victor  in  a  barren  strife.  And  the  honour  is 
always  well  won;  for  the  struggles  Mr.  Henry  James 
chronicles  with   such   subtle   and   direct   insight   are. 


HENRY  JAMES  15 

though  only  personal  contests,  desperate  in  their  silence, 
none  the  less  heroic  (in  the  modern  sense)  for  the  ab- 
sence of  shouted  watchwords,  clash  of  arms  and  sound 
of  trumpets.  Those  are  adventures  in  which  only 
choice  souls  are  ever  involved.  And  Mr.  Henry 
James  records  them  with  a  fearless  and  insistent 
fidelity  to  the  peripeties  of  the  contest,  and  the  feeling 
of  the  combatants. 

The  fiercest  excitements  of  a  romance  ^'de  cape  et 
d'  epee,"  the  romance  of  yard-arm  and  boarding  pike 
so  dear  to  youth,  whose  knowledge  of  action  (as  of  other 
things)  is  imperfect  and  limited,  are  matched,  for  the 
quickening  of  our  maturer  years,  by  the  tasks  set,  by 
the  diflSculties  presented,  to  the  sense  of  truth,  of 
necessity — before  all,  of  conduct — of  Mr.  Henry 
James's  men  and  women.  His  mankind  is  delightful. 
It  is  delightful  in  its  tenacity;  it  refuses  to  own  itself 
beaten;  it  will  sleep  on  the  battlefield.  These  warlike 
images  come  by  themselves  under  the  pen;  since  from 
the  duality  of  man's  nature  and  the  competition  of 
individuals,  the  life-history  of  the  earth  must  in  the  last 
instance  be  a  history  of  a  really  very  relentless  warfare. 
Neither  his  fellows,  nor  his  gods,  nor  his  passions  will 
leave  a  man  alone.  In  virtue  of  these  allies  and 
enemies,  he  holds  his  precarious  dominion,  he  possesses 
his  fleeting  significance;  and  it  is  this  relation  m  all  its 
manifestations,  great  and  little,  superficial  or  profound, 
and  this  relation  alone,  that  is  commented  upon,  inter- 
preted, demonstrated  by  the  art  of  the  novelist  in  the 
only  possible  way  in  which  the  task  can  be  performed: 
by  the  independent  creation  of  circumstance  and 
character,  achieved  against  all  the  difficulties  of  ex- 
pression, in  an  imaginative  effort  finding  its  inspira- 
tion from  the  reality  of  forms  and  sensations.  That 
a  sacrifice  must  be  made,  that  something  has  to  be 


16  NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

given  up,  is  the  truth  engraved  in  the  innermost  re- 
cesses of  the  fair  temple  built  for  our  edification  by  the 
masters  of  fiction.  There  is  no  other  secret  behind 
the  curtain.  All  adventure,  all  love,  every  success  is 
resumed  in  the  supreme  energy  of  an  act  of  renunciation. 
It  is  the  uttermost  limit  of  our  power;  it  is  the  most 
potent  and  effective  force  at  our  disposal  on  which  rest 
the  labours  of  a  solitary  man  in  his  study,  the  rock  on 
which  have  been  built  commonwealths  whose  might 
casts  a  dwarfing  shadow  upon  two  oceans.  Like  a 
natural  force  which  is  obscured  as  much  as  illuminated 
by  the  multiplicity  of  phenomena,  the  power  of  re- 
nunciation is  obscured  by  the  mass  of  weaknesses, 
vacillations,  secondary  motives  and  false  steps  and 
compromises  v/hich  make  up  the  sum  of  our  activity. 
But  no  man  or  woman  worthy  of  the  name  can  pre- 
tend to  anything  more,  to  anything  greater.  And 
Mr.  Henry  James's  men  and  women  are  worthy  of  the 
name,  within  the  limits  his  art,  so  clear,  so  sure  of 
itself,  has  drawn  round  their  activities.  He  would  be 
the  last  to  claim  for  them  Titanic  proportions.  The 
earth  itself  has  grown  smaller  in  the  course  of  ages. 
But  in  every  sphere  of  human  perplexities  and  emotions, 
there  are  more  greatnesses  than  one — not  counting 
here  the  greatness  of  the  artist  himself.  Wlierever  he 
stands,  at  the  beginning  or  the  end  of  thmgs,  a  man  has 
to  sacrifice  his  gods  to  his  passions  or  his  passions  to 
his  gods.  That  is  the  problem,  great  enough,  in  all 
truth,  if  approached  in  the  spirit  of  sincerity  and 
knowledge. 

In  one  of  his  critical  studies,  published  some  fifteen 
years  ago,  Mr.  Henry  James  claims  for  the  novelist 
the  standing  of  the  historian  as  the  only  adequate  one, 
as  for  himself  and  before  his  audience.  I  think  that 
the  claim  cannot  be  contested,  and  that  the  position  is 


HENRY  JAMES  17 

unassailable.  Fiction  is  history,  human  history,  or  it  is 
nothing.  But  it  is  also  more  than  that;  it  stands  on 
firmer  ground,  being  based  on  the  reality  of  forms  and 
the  observation  of  social  phenomena,  whereas  history  is 
based  on  documents,  and  the  reading  of  print  and  hand- 
writing— on  second-hand  impression.  Thus  fiction  is 
nearer  truth.  But  let  that  pass.  A  historian  may  be 
an  artist  too,  and  a  novelist  is  a  historian,  the  preserver, 
the  keeper,  the  expounder,  of  human  experience.  As 
is  meet  for  a  man  of  his  descent  and  tradition,  Mr. 
Henry  James  is  the  historian  of  fine  consciences. 

Of  course,  this  is  a  general  statement;  but  I  don't 
think  its  truth  will  be,  or  can  be  questioned.  Its 
fault  is  that  it  leaves  so  much  out;  and,  besides, 
Mr.  Henry  James  is  much  too  considerable  to  be 
put  into  the  nutshell  of  a  phrase.  The  fact  remains 
that  he  has  made  his  choice,  and  that  his  choice 
is  justified  up  to  the  hilt  by  the  success  of  his  art. 
He  has  taken  for  himself  the  greater  part.  The 
range  of  a  fine  conscience  covers  more  good  and 
evil  than  the  range  of  conscience  which  may  be  called, 
roughly,  not  fine;  a  conscience,  less  troubled  by  the  nice 
discrimination  of  shades  of  conduct.  A  fine  conscience 
is  more  concerned  with  essentials;  its  triumphs  are  more 
perfect,  if  less  profitable,  in  a  worldly  sense.  There  is, 
in  short,  more  truth  in  its  w^orking  for  a  historian  to  de- 
tect and  to  show.  It  is  a  thing  of  infinite  complication 
and  suggestion.  None  of  these  escapes  the  art  of  Mr. 
Henry  James.  He  has  mastered  the  country,  his  do- 
main, not  wild  indeed,  but  full  of  romantic  glimpses,  of 
deep  shadows  and  sunny  places.  There  are  no  secrets 
left  within  his  range.  He  has  disclosed  them  as  they 
should  be  disclosed — that  is,  beautifully.  And,  indeed, 
ugliness  has  but  little  place  in  this  world  of  his  creation. 
Yet  it  is  always  felt  in  the  truthfulness  of  his  art;  it  is 


18         NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

there,  it  surrounds  the  scene,  it  presses  close  upon  it.  It 
is  made  visible,  tangible,  in  the  struggles,  in  the  con- 
tacts of  the  fine  consciences,  in  their  perplexities,  in  the 
sophism  of  their  mistakes.  For  a  fine  conscience  is 
naturally  a  virtuous  one.  What  is  natural  about  it  is 
just  its  fineness,  and  abiding  sense  of  the  intangible, 
ever-present,  right.  It  is  most  visible  in  their  ultimate 
triumph,  in  their  emergence  from  miracle,  through  an 
energetic  act  of  renunciation.  Energetic,  not  violent; 
the  distinction  is  wide,  enormous,  like  that  between 
substance  and  shadow. 

Through  it  all  Mr.  Henry  James  keeps  a  firm  hold 
of  the  substance,  of  what  is  worth  having,  of  what  is 
worth  holding.  The  contrary  opinion  has  been,  if  not 
absolutely  affirmed,  then  at  least  implied,  with  some 
frequency.  To  most  of  us,  living  willingly  in  a  sort  of 
intellectual  moonlight,  in  the  faintly  reflected  light  of 
truth,  the  shadows  so  firmly  renounced  by  Mr.  Henry 
James's  men  and  women,  stand  out  endowed  with 
extraordinary  value,  with  a  value  so  extraordinary  that 
their  rejection  offends,  by  its  uncalled-for  scrupulous- 
ness, those  business-like  instincts  which  a  careful 
Providence  has  implanted  in  our  breasts.  And,  apart 
from  that  just  cause  of  discontent,  it  is  obvious  that  a 
solution  by  rejection  must  always  present  a  certain  lack 
of  finality,  especially  startling  when  contrasted  with 
the  usual  methods  of  solution  by  rewards  and  punish- 
ments, by  crowned  love,  by  fortune,  by  a  broken  leg  or  a 
sudden  death.  Why  the  reading  public  which,  as  a 
body,  has  never  laid  upon  a  story-teller  the  command  to 
be  an  artist,  should  demand  from  him  this  sham  of 
Divine  Omnipotence,  is  utterly  incomprehensible.  But 
so  it  is;  and  these  solutions  are  legitimate  inasmuch  as 
they  satisfy  the  desire  for  finality,  for  which  our  hearts 
yearn,  with  a  longing  greater  than  the  longing  for  the 


HENRY  JAIMES  19 

loaves  and  fishes  of  this  earth.  Perhaps  the  only  true  de- 
sire of  mankind,  coming  thus  to  hght  in  its  hours  of  lei- 
sure, is  to  be  set  at  rest.  One  is  never  set  at  rest  by  Mr. 
Henry  James's  novels.  His  books  end  as  an  episode  in 
hfe  ends.  You  remain  \\dth  the  sense  of  the  life  still 
going  on;  and  even  the  subtle  presence  of  the  dead  is 
felt  in  that  silence  that  comes  upon  the  artist-creation 
when  the  last  word  has  been  read.  It  is  eminently 
satisfying,  but  it  is  not  final.  Mr.  Henry  James, 
great  artist  and  faithful  historian,  never  attempts  the 
impossible. 


ALPHONSE  DAUDET 

1898 

It  is  sweet  to  talk  decorously  of  the  dead  who  are 
part  of  our  past,  our  indisputable  possession.  One  must 
admit  regretfully  that  to-day  is  but  a  scramble,  that 
to-morrow  may  never  come;  it  is  only  the  precious 
yesterday  that  cannot  be  taken  away  from  us.  A  gift 
from  the  dead,  great  and  little,  it  makes  life  supportable, 
it  almost  makes  one  believe  in  a  benevolent  scheme  of 
creation.  And  some  kind  of  belief  is  very  necessary. 
But  the  real  knowledge  of  matters  infinitely  more  pro- 
found than  any  conceivable  scheme  of  creation  is  with 
the  dead  alone.  That  is  why  our  talk  about  them 
should  be  as  decorous  as  their  silence.  Their  generosity 
and  their  discretion  deserve  nothing  less  at  our  hands; 
and  they,  who  belong  already  to  the  unchangeable, 
would  probably  disdain  to  claim  more  than  this  from  a 
mankind  that  changes  its  loves  and  its  hates  about 
every  twenty-five  years — at  the  coming  of  every  new 
and  wiser  generation. 

One  of  the  most  generous  of  the  dead  is  Daudet,  who, 
with  a  prodigality  approaching  magnificence,  gave  him- 
self up  to  us  without  reserve  in  his  work,  with  all  his 
qualities  and  all  his  faults.  Neither  his  qualities  nor 
his  faults  were  great,  though  they  were  by  no  means 
imperceptible.  It  is  only  his  generosity  that  is  out  of 
the  common.  What  strikes  one  most  in  his  work  is  the 
disinterestedness  of  the  toiler.  With  more  talent  than 
many  bigger  men,  he  did  not  preach  about  himself,  he 

20 


ALPHONSE  DAUDET  21 

did  not  attempt  to  persuade  mankind  into  a  belief  of  his 
own  greatness.  He  never  posed  as  a  scientist  or  as  a 
seer,  not  even  as  a  prophet;  and  he  neglected  his 
interests  to  the  point  of  never  propounding  a  theory  for 
the  purpose  of  giving  a  tremendous  significance  to  his 
art,  alone  of  all  things,  in  a  world  that,  by  some  strange 
oversight,  has  not  been  supplied  with  an  obvious  mean- 
ing. Neither  did  he  affect  a  passive  attitude  before 
the  spectacle  of  life,  an  attitude  which  in  gods — and  in  a 
rare  mortal  here  and  there — may  appear  godlike,  but 
assumed  by  some  men,  causes  one,  very  unwillingly,  to 
think  of  the  melancholy  quietude  of  an  ape.  He  was 
not  the  wearisome  expounder  of  this  or  that  theory, 
here  to-day  and  spumed  to-morrow.  He  was  not  a 
great  artist,  he  was  not  an  artist  at  all,  if  you  like — but 
he  was  Alphonse  Daudet,  a  man  as  n [lively  clear,  hon- 
est, and  vibrating  as  the  sunshine  of  his  native  land; 
that  regrettably  undiscriminating  sunshine  which  ma- 
tures grapes  and  pumpkins  alike,  and  cannot,  of  course, 
obtain  the  commendation  of  the  very  select  who  look 
at  life  from  under  a  parasol. 

Naturally,  being  a  man  from  the  South,  he  had  a 
rather  outspoken  belief  in  himself,  but  his  small  dis- 
tinction, worth  many  a  greater,  was  in  not  being  in 
bondage  to  some  vanishing  creed.  He  was  a  worker 
who  could  not  compel  the  admiration  of  the  few,  but 
who  deserved  the  affection  of  the  many;  and  he  may 
be  spoken  of  with  tenderness  and  regret,  for  he  is  not 
immortal — he  is  only  dead.  During  his  life  the  simple 
man  whose  business  it  ought  to  have  been  to  climb, 
in  the  name  of  Art,  some  elevation  or  other,  was  con- 
tent to  remain  below,  on  the  plain,  amongst  his  crea- 
tions, and  take  an  eager  part  in  those  disasters,  weak- 
nesses, and  joys  which  are  tragic  enough  in  their  droll 
way,  but  are  by  no  means  so  momentous  and  profound 


22         NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

as  some  writers — probably  for  the  sake  of  Art — would 
like  to  make  us  believe.  There  is,  when  one  thinks  of 
it,  a  considerable  v/ant  of  candour  in  the  august  view  of 
life.  Without  doubt  a  cautious  reticence  on  the  sub- 
ject, or  even  a  delicately  false  suggestion  thrown  out  in 
that  direction  is,  in  a  way,  praiseworthy,  since  it  helps 
to  uphold  the  dignity  of  man — a  matter  of  great  im- 
portance, as  any  one  can  see;  still  one  cannot  help  feeling 
that  a  certain  amount  of  sincerity  would  not  be  wholly 
blamable.  To  state,  then,  with  studied  moderation  a 
belief  that  in  unfortunate  moments  of  lucidity  is  irre- 
sistibly borne  in  upon  most  of  us — the  blind  agitation 
caused  mostly  by  hunger  and  complicated  by  love 
and  ferocity  does  not  deserve  either  by  its  beauty, 
or  its  morality,  or  its  possible  results,  the  artistic  fuss 
made  over  it.  It  may  be  consoling — for  human  folly  is 
very  bizarre — but  it  is  scarcely  honest  to  shout  at  those 
who  struggle  drowning  in  an  insignificant  pool:  Vou 
are  indeed  admirable  and  great  to  be  the  victims  of 
such  a  profound,  of  such  a  terrible  ocean! 

And  Daudet  was  honest;  perhaps  because  he  knew  no 
better — but  he  was  very  honest.  If  he  saw  only  the 
surface  of  things  it  is  for  the  reason  that  most  things 
have  nothing  but  a  surface.  He  did  not  pretend — per- 
haps because  he  did  not  know  how — ^he  did  not  pretend 
to  see  any  depths  in  a  life  that  is  only  a  film  of  unsteady 
appearances  stretched  over  regions  deep  indeed,  but 
which  have  nothing  to  do  with  the  half-truths,  half- 
thoughts,  and  whole  illusions  of  existence.  The  road  to 
these  distant  regions  does  not  lie  through  the  domain  of 
Art  or  the  domain  of  Science  where  well-known  voices 
quarrel  noisily  in  a  misty  emptiness;  it  is  a  path  of 
toilsome  silence  upon  which  travel  men  simple  and  un- 
known, with  closed  lips,  or,  may  be,  whispering  their 
pain  softly — only  to  themselves. 


ALPHONSE  DAUDET  23 

But  Daudet  did  not  whisper;  he  spoke  loudly,  with 
animation,  with  a  clear  felicity  of  tone — as  a  bird  sings. 
He  saw  life  around  him  with  extreme  clearness,  and  he 
felt  it  as  it  is — thinner  than  air  and  more  elusive  than  a 
flash  of  lightning.  He  hastened  to  offer  it  his  com- 
passion, his  indignation,  his  wonder,  his  sympathy, 
without  giving  a  moment  of  thought  to  the  momentous 
issues  that  are  supposed  to  lurk  in  the  logic  of  such 
sentiments.  He  tolerated  the  little  foibles,  the  small 
ruffianisms,  the  grave  mistakes;  the  only  thing  he 
distinctly  would  not  forgive  was  hardness  of  heart. 
This  unpractical  attitude  would  have  been  fatal  to 
a  better  man,  but  his  readers  have  forgiven  him. 
Withal  he  is  chivalrous  to  exiled  queens  and  deformed 
sempstresses,  he  is  pityingly  tender  to  broken-down 
actors,  to  ruined  gentlemen,  to  stupid  Academicians; 
he  is  glad  of  the  joys  of  the  commonplace  people  in  a 
commonplace  way — and  he  never  makes  a  secret  of  all 
this.  No,  the  man  was  not  an  artist.  \^Tiat  if  his 
creations  are  illumined  by  the  sunshine  of  his  tempera- 
ment so  vividly  that  they  stand  before  us  infinitely  more 
real  than  the  dingy  illusions  surrounding  our  everyday 
existence?  The  misguided  man  is  for  ever  pottering 
amongst  them,  lifting  up  his  voice,  dotting  his  i's  in  the 
wrong  places.  He  takes  Tartarin  by  the  arm,  he  does 
not  conceal  his  interest  in  the  Nabob's  cheques,  his 
sympathy  for  an  honest  Academician  plus  bete  que 
nature,  his  hate  for  an  architect  plus  mauvais  que  la 
gale;  he  is  in  the  thick  of  it  all.  He  feels  with  the 
Due  de  Mora  and  with  Felicia  Ruys — and  he  lets  you 
see  it.  He  does  not  sit  on  a  pedestal  in  the  hieratic 
and  imbecile  pose  of  some  cheap  god  whose  greatness 
consists  in  being  too  stupid  to  care.  He  cares  im- 
mensely for  his  Nabobs,  his  kings,  his  book-keepers,  his 
Colettes,  and  his  Saphos.    He  vibrates  together  with 


24  NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

liis  universe,  and  with  lamentable  simplicity  follows  M. 
de  Montpavon  on  that  last  walk  along  the  Boulevards. 
"  Alonsieur  de  Montpavon  mar  die  a  la  mort/'  and  the 
creator  of  that  unlucky  gentilhomme  follows  with 
stealthy  footsteps,  with  wide  eyes,  with  an  impressively 
pointing  finger.  And  who  wouldn't  look?  But  it  is 
hard;  it  is  sometimes  very  hard  to  forgive  him  the 
dotted  i's,  the  pointing  finger,  this  making  plain  of  ob- 
vious mysteries.  "Monsieur  de  Montpavon  marche  a 
la  mort,''  and  presently  on  the  crowded  pavement, 
.takes  off  his  hat  with  punctilious  courtesy  to  the 
doctor's  wife,  who,  elegant  and  unhappy,  is  bound 
on  the  same  pilgrimage.  This  is  too  much!  We 
feel  we  cannot  forgive  him  such  meetings,  the  con- 
stant whisper  of  his  presence.  We  feel  we  cannot, 
till  suddenly  the  very  naivete  of  it  all  touches  us  with 
the  revealed  suggestion  of  a  truth.  Then  we  see  that 
the  man  is  not  false;  all  this  is  done  in  transparent 
good  faith.  The  man  is  not  melodramatic;  he  is  only 
picturesque.  He  may  not  be  an  artist,  but  he  comes  as 
near  the  truth  as  some  of  the  greatest.  His  creations 
are  seen;  you  can  look  into  their  very  eyes,  and  these 
are  as  thoughtless  as  the  eyes  of  any  wise  generation 
that  has  in  its  hands  the  fame  of  writers.  Yes,  they 
are  seen,  and  the  man  who  is  not  an  artist  is  seen  also, 
commiserating,  indignant,  joyous,  human  and  alive  in 
their  very  midst.  Inevitably  they  marchent  a  la  morf 
— and  they  are  very  near  the  truth  of  our  common 
destiny:  their  fate  is  poignant,  it  is  intensely  interest- 
ing, and  of  not  the  slightest  consequence. 


GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT^ 
1904 

To  INTRODUCE  Maupassant  to  English  readers  \\nth 
apologetic  explanations  as  though  his  art  were  recondite 
and  the  tendency  of  his  work  immoral  would  be  a 
gratuitous  impertinence. 

Maupassant's  conception  of  his  art  is  such  as  one 
would  expect  from  a  practical  and  resolute  mind ;  but  in 
the  consummate  simplicity  of  his  technique  it  ceases  to 
be  p)erceptible.  This  is  one  of  its  greatest  qualities,  and 
like  all  the  great  virtues  it  is  based  primarily  on  self- 
denial. 

To  pronounce  a  judgment  upon  the  general  tendency 
of  an  author  is  a  difficult  task.  One  could  not  depend 
upon  reason  alone,  nor  yet  trust  solely  to  one's  emotions. 
Used  together,  they  would  in  many  cases  traverse  each 
other,  because  emotions  have  their  own  unanswerable 
logic.  Our  capacity  for  emotion  is  limited,  and  the 
field  of  our  intelligence  is  restricted.  Responsiveness 
to  every  feeling,  combined  with  the  penetration  of 
every  intellectual  subterfuge,  would  end,  not  in  judg- 
ment, but  in  universal  absolution.  Tout  comprendre 
c'est  tout  pardonner.  And  in  this  benevolent  neutrality 
towards  the  warring  errors  of  human  nature  all  light 
would  go  out  from  art  and  from  life. 

We  are  at  liberty  then  to  quarrel  with  Maupassant's 
attitude  towards  our  world  in  which,  like  the  rest  of  us, 
he  has  that  share  which  his  senses  are  able  to  give  him. 

1 "  Yvette  and  Other  Stpries,"  Translated  by  Ada  Galsworthy, 


26         NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

But  we  need  not  quarrel  with  him  violently.  If  our 
feelings  (which  are  tender)  happen  to  be  hurt  because 
his  talent  is  not  exercised  for  the  praise  and  consolation 
of  mankind,  our  intelligence  (which  is  great)  should  let 
us  see  that  he  is  a  very  splendid  sinner,  like  all  those 
who  in  this  valley  of  compromises  err  by  over-devotion 
to  the  truth  that  is  in  them.  His  determinism,  barren 
of  praise,  blame  and  consolation,  has  all  the  merit  of  his 
conscientious  art.  The  worth  of  every  conviction  con- 
sists precisely  in  the  steadfastness  with  which  it  is  held. 

Except  for  his  philosophy,  which  in  the  case  of  so 
consummate  an  artist  does  not  matter  (unless  to  the 
solemn  and  naive  mind)  Maupassant  of  all  writers  of 
fiction  demands  least  forgiveness  from  his  readers.  He 
does  not  require  forgiveness  because  he  is  never  dull. 

The  interest  of  a  reader  in  a  work  of  imagination  is 
either  ethical  or  that  of  simple  curiosity.  Both  are 
{perfectly  legitimate,  since  there  is  both  a  moral  and  an 
excitement  to  be  found  in  a  faithful  rendering  of  life. 
And  in  Maupassant's  work  there  is  the  interest  of 
curiosity  and  the  moral  of  a  point  of  view  consistently 
preserved  and  never  obtruded  for  the  end  of  personal 
gratification.  The  sj>ectacle  of  this  immense  talent 
served  by  exceptional  faculties  and  triumphing  over  the 
most  thankless  subjects  by  an  unswerving  singleness  of 
purpose  is  in  itself  an  admirable  lesson  in  the  power  of 
artistic  honesty,  one  may  say  of  artistic  virtue.  The 
inherent  greatness  of  the  man  consists  ui  this,  that  he 
will  let  none  of  the  fascinations  that  beset  a  writer 
working  in  loneliness  turn  him  away  from  the  straight 
path,  from  the  vouchsafed  vision  of  excellence.  He  will 
not  be  led  into  perdition  by  the  seductions  of  sentiment, 
of  eloquence,  of  humour,  of  pathos;  of  all  that  splendid 
pageant  of  faults  that  pass  between  the  writer  and  his 
probity  on  the  blank  sheet  of  paper,  like  the  glittering 


GUY  DE  IMAUPASSANT  27 

cortege  of  deadly  sins  before  the  austere  ancliorite  in 
the  desert  air  of  Thebaide.  This  is  not  to  say  that 
Maupassant's  austerity  has  never  faltered ;  but  the  fact 
remains  that  no  tempting  demon  has  ever  succeeded  in 
hurling  him  down  from  his  high,  if  narrow,  pedestal. 
It  is  the  austerity  of  his  talent,  of  course,  that  is  in 
question.  Let  the  discriminating  reader,  who  at  times 
may  well  spare  a  moment  or  two  to  the  consideration 
and  enjoyment  of  artistic  excellence,  be  asked  to  re- 
flect a  little  upon  the  texture  of  tw^o  stories  included  in 
this  volume:  "A  Piece  of  String,"  and  "A  Sale." 
How  many  openings  the  last  offers  for  the  gratuitous 
display  of  the  author's  w4t  or  clever  buffoonery,  the 
first  for  an  unmeasured  display  of  sentiment!  And 
both  sentiment  and  buffoonery  could  have  been  made 
very  good  too,  in  a  way  accessible  to  the  meanest  in- 
telligence, at  the  cost  of  truth  and  honesty.  Here  it  is 
where  Maupassant's  austerity  comes  in.  He  refrains 
from  setting  his  cleverness  against  the  eloquence  of  the 
facts.  There  is  humour  and  pathos  in  these  stories;  but 
such  is  the  greatness  of  his  talent,  the  refinement  of  his 
artistic  conscience,  that  all  his  high  qualities  appear 
inherent  in  the  very  things  of  which  he  speaks,  as  if  they 
had  been  altogether  independent  of  his  presentation. 
Facts,  and  again  facts  are  his  unique  concern.  That  is 
why  he  is  not  always  properly  understood.  His  facts 
are  so  perfectly  rendered  that,  like  the  actualities  of  life 
itself,  they  demand  from  the  reader  the  faculty  of 
observation  which  is  rare,  the  power  of  appreciation 
which  is  generally  wanting  in  most  of  us  w^ho  are  guided 
mainly  by  empty  phrases  requiring  no  effort,  demanding 
from  us  no  qualities  except  a  vague  susceptibility  to 
emotion.  Nobody  has  ever  gained  the  vast  applause 
of  a  crov/d  by  the  simple  and  clear  exposition  of  vital 
facts.     Words  alone  strung  upon  a  convention  have 


28         NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

fascinated  us  as  worthless  glass  beads  strung  on  a  thread 
have  charmed  at  all  times  our  brothers  the  unsophisti- 
cated savages  of  the  islands.  Now,  Maupassant,  of 
whom  it  has  been  said  that  he  is  the  master  of  the  mot 
juste,  has  never  been  a  dealer  in  words.  His  wares 
have  been,  not  glass  beads,  but  polished  gems:  not  the 
most  rare  and  precious,  perhaps,  but  of  the  very  first 
water  of  their  kind. 

That  he  took  trouble  with  his  gems,  taking  them  up 
in  the  rough  and  polishing  each  facet  patiently,  the 
publication  of  the  two  posthumous  volumes  of  short 
stories  proves  abundantly.  I  think  it  proves  also  the 
assertion  made  here  that  he  was  by  no  means  a  dealer 
in  words.  On  looking  at  the  first  feeble  drafts  from 
which  so  many  perfect  stories  have  been  fashioned, 
one  discovers  that  what  has  been  matured,  improved, 
brought  to  perfection  by  unwearied  endeavour  is  not 
the  diction  of  the  tale,  but  the  vision  of  its  true  shape 
and  detail.  Those  first  attempts  are  not  faltering  or 
uncertain  in  expression.  It  is  the  conception  which  is 
at  fault.  The  subjects  have  not  yet  been  adequately 
seen.  His  proceeding  was  not  to  group  expressive 
words,  that  mean  nothing,  around  misty  and  mysterious 
shapes  dear  to  muddled  intellects  and  belonging  neither 
to  earth  nor  to  heaven.  His  vision  by  a  more  scrupu- 
lous, prolonged  and  devoted  attention  to  the  aspects  of 
the  visible  world  discovered  at  last  the  right  words  as  if 
miraculously  impressed  for  him  upon  the  face  of  things 
and  events.  This  was  the  particular  shape  taken  by 
his  inspiration;  it  came  to  him  directly,  honestly  in  the 
light  of  his  day,  not  on  the  tortuous,  dark  roads  of 
meditation.  His  realities  came  to  him  from  a  genuine 
source,  from  this  universe  of  vain  appearances  wherein 
we  men  have  found  everything  to  make  us  proud,  sorry, 
exalted,  and  humble. 


GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT  29 

Maupassant's  renown  is  universal,  but  his  popularity 
IS  restricted.  It  is  not  diflBcult  to  perceive  why. 
Maupassant  is  an  intensely  national  writer.  He  is  so 
intensely  national  in  his  logic,  in  his  clearness,  in  his 
aesthetic  and  moral  conceptions,  that  he  has  been  ac- 
cepted by  his  countrymen  without  having  had  to  pay 
the  tribute  of  flattery  either  to  the  nation  as  a  whole,  or 
to  any  class,  sphere  or  division  of  the  nation.  The 
truth  of  his  art  tells  with  an  irresistible  force;  and  he 
stands  excused  from  the  duty  of  patriotic  posturing. 
He  is  a  Frenchman  of  Frenchmen  beyond  question  or 
cavil,  and  with  that  he  is  simple  enough  to  be  universally 
comprehensible.  What  is  wanting  to  his  universal 
success  is  the  mediocrity  of  an  obvious  and  appealing 
tenderness.  He  neglects  to  qualify  his  truth  with  the 
drop  of  facile  sweetness;  he  forgets  to  strew  paper  roses 
over  the  tombs.  The  disregard  of  these  common 
decencies  lays  him  open  to  the  charges  of  cruelty, 
cynicism,  hardness.  And  yet  it  can  be  safely  affirmed 
that  this  man  wrote  from  tlie  fulness  of  a  compassionate 
heart.  He  is  merciless  and  yet  gentle  with  his  mankind; 
he  does  not  rail  at  their  prudent  fears  and  their  small 
artifices;  he  does  not  despise  their  labours.  It  seems 
to  me  that  he  looks  with  an  eye  of  profound  pity  upon 
their  troubles,  deceptions  and  misery.  But  he  looks 
at  them  all.  He  sees — and  does  not  turn  away  his  head. 
As  a  matter  of  fact  he  is  courageous. 

Courage  and  justice  are  not  popular  virtues.  The 
practice  of  strict  justice  is  shocking  to  the  multitude 
who  always  (perhaps  from  an  obscure  sense  of  guilt) 
attach  to  it  the  meaning  of  mercy.  In  the  majority  of 
us,  who  want  to  be  left  alone  with  our  illusions,  courage 
inspires  a  vague  alarm.  This  is  what  is  felt  about 
Maupassant.  His  qualities,  to  use  the  charming  and 
popular  phrase,    are   not   lovable.     Courage   being  a 


30         NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

force  will  not  masquerade  in  the  robes  of  affected 
delicacy  and  restraint.  But  if  his  courage  is  not  of  a 
chivalrous  stamp,  it  cannot  be  denied  that  it  is  never 
brutal  for  the  sake  of  effect.  The  writer  of  these  few 
reflections,  inspired  by  a  long  and  intimate  acquaintance 
with  the  work  of  the  man,  has  been  struck  by  the  ap- 
preciation of  Maupassant  manifested  by  many  women 
gifted  with  tenderness  and  intelligence.  Their  more 
delicate  and  audacious  souls  are  good  judges  of  courage. 
Their  finer  penetration  has  discovered  his  genuine 
masculinity  without  display,  his  virility  without  a  pose. 
They  have  discerned  in  his  faithful  dealings  with  the 
world  that  enterprising  and  fearless  temperament,  poor 
in  ideas  but  rich  in  power,  which  appeals  most  to  the 
feminine  mmd. 

It  cannot  be  denied  that  he  thinlvs  very  little.  In 
him  extreme  energy  of  perception  achieves  great  re- 
sults, as  in  men  of  action  the  energy  of  force  and  desire. 
His  view  of  intellectual  problems  is  perhaps  more 
simple  than  their  nature  warrants;  still  a  man  who  has 
written  *' Yvette"  cannot  be  accused  of  want  of  subtlety. 
But  one  cannot  insist  enough  upon  this,  that  his  subtlety, 
his  humour,  his  grinmess,  though  no  doubt  they  are 
his  own,  are  never  presented  other^\^se  but  as  belonging 
to  our  life,  as  found  in  nature,  whose  beauties  and  cruel- 
ties alike  breathe  the  spirit  of  serene  unconsciousness. 

Maupassant's  philosophy  cf  life  is  more  tempera- 
mental than  rational.  He  expects  nothing  from  gods 
or  men.  He  trusts  his  senses  for  mformation  and 
his  instinct  for  deductions.  It  may  seem  that  he  has 
made  but  little  use  of  his  mind.  But  let  me  be  clearly 
understood.  His  sensibility  is  really  very  great;  and  it 
is  impossible  to  be  sensible,  unless  one  thinks  vividly, 
unless  one  thinks  correctly,  starting  from  intelligible 
premises  to  an  unsophisticated  conclusion. 


GUY  DE  IVIAUPASSANT  31 

This  is  literary  honesty.  It  may  be  remarked  that 
it  does  not  differ  very  greatly  from  the  ideal  honesty 
of  the  respectable  majority,  from  the  honesty  of  law- 
givers, of  warriors,  of  Idngs,  of  bricklayers,  of  all  those 
who  express  their  fundamental  sentiment  in  the  ordi- 
nary course  of  their  activities,  by  the  work  of  their 
hands. 

The  work  of  Maupassant's  hands  is  honest.  He 
thinks  sufficiently  to  concrete  his  fearless  conclusions 
in  illuminative  instances.  He  renders  them  with  that 
exact  knowledge  of  the  means  and  that  absolute  de- 
votion to  the  aim  of  creating  a  true  effect — which  is  art. 
He  is  the  most  accomplished  of  narrators. 

It  is  evident  that  Maupassant  looked  upon  his  man- 
kind in  another  spirit  than  those  writers  who  make  haste 
to  submerge  the  difficulties  of  our  holding-place  in  the 
universe  under  a  flood  of  false  and  sentimental  assump- 
tions. Maupassant  was  a  true  and  dutiful  lover  of  our 
earth.  He  says  himself  in  one  of  his  descriptive  pas- 
sages: "Nous  autres  que  seduit  la  terre  .  .  ."  It 
was  true.  The  earth  had  for  him  a  compelling  charm. 
He  looks  upon  her  august  and  furrowed  face  v/ith  the 
fierce  insight  of  real  passion.  His  is  the  power  of  de- 
tecting the  one  immutable  quality  that  matters  in 
the  changing  aspects  of  nature  and  under  the  ever- 
shifting  surface  of  life.  To  say  that  he  could  not  em- 
brace in  his  glance  all  its  magnificence  and  all  its  misery 
is  only  to  say  that  he  was  human.  He  lays  claim  to 
nothing  that  his  matchless  vision  has  not  made  his  own. 
This  creative  artist  has  the  true  imagination;  he  never 
condescends  to  invent  anything;  he  sets  up  no  empty 
pretences.  And  he  stoops  to  no  littleness  in  his  art — ■ 
least  of  all  to  the  miserable  vanity  of  a  catching  phrase. 


ANATOLE  FRANCE 
1904 

I 

' '  Cr  AINQUEBILLE ' ' 

The  latest  volume  of  M.  Anatole  France  purports^ 
by  the  declaration  of  its  title-page,  to  contain  several 
profitable  narratives.  The  story  of  Crainquebille's 
encounter  with  human  justice  stands  at  the  head  of 
tliem;  a  tale  of  a  well-bestowed  charity  closes  the  book 
with  the  touch  of  playful  irony  characteristic  of  the 
writer  on  whom  the  most  distinguished  amongst  his 
literary  countrymen  have  conferred  the  rank  of  Prince 
of  Prose. 

Never  has  a  dignity  been  better  borne.  M.  Anatole 
France  is  a  good  prince.  He  knows  nothing  of  tyranny 
but  much  of  compassion.  The  detachment  of  his  mind 
from  common  errors  and  current  superstitions  befits 
the  exalted  rank  he  holds  in  the  Commonwealth  of 
Literature.  It  is  just  to  suppose  that  the  clamour  of 
the  tribes  in  the  forum  had  little  to  do  with  his  eleva- 
tion. Their  elect  are  of  another  stamp.  They  are 
such  as  their  need  of  precipitate  action  requires.  He 
is  the  Elect  of  the  Senate — the  Senate  of  Letters — 
whose  Conscript  Fathers  have  recognised  him  as 
primus  inter  pares;  a  post  of  pure  honour  and  of  no 
privilege. 

It  is  a  good  choice.    First,  because  it  is  just,  and  next, 

32 


ANATOLE  FRANCE  33 

because  it  is  safe.     The  dignity  will  suffer  no  diminu- 
tion in  M.  Anatole  France's  hands.     He  is  worthy  of  a 
great  tradition,  learned  in  the  lessons  of  the  past,  con- 
cerned with  the  present,  and  as  earnest  as  to  the  future 
as  a  good  prince  should  be  in  his  public  action.     It  is 
a  Republican  dignity.     And  M.  Anatole  France,  with 
his  sceptical  insight  into  all  forms  of  government,  is  a 
good  Republican.     He  is  indulgent  to  the  weaknesses  of 
the  people,   and  perceives  that  political  institutions, 
whetlier  contrived  by  the  wisdom  of  the  few  or  the 
ignorance  of  the  many,  are  incapable  of  securing  the 
happiness  of  mankind.      He  perceives  this  truth  in  the 
serenity  of  his  soul  and  in  the  elevation  of  his  mind. 
He  expresses  his  convictions  with  measure,  restraint 
and  harmony,  which  are  indeed  princely  qualities.     He 
is  a  great  analyst  of  illusions.     He  searches  and  probes 
their  innermost  recesses  as  if  they  were  realities  made 
of   an   eternal    substance.     And    therein    consists   his 
humanity;  this  is  the  expression  of  his  profound  and 
unalterable  compassion.     He  will  flatter  no  tribe,  no 
section  in  the  forum  or  in  the  market-place.     His  lucid 
thought  is  not  beguiled   into  false  pity  or  into  the 
common  weakness  of  affection.     He  feels  that  men  born 
in  ignorance  as  in  the  house  of  an  enemy,  and  con- 
denmed  to  struggle  with  error  and  passions  through 
endless  centuries,  should  be  spared  the  supreme  cruelty 
of  a  hope  for  ever  deferred.     He  knows  that  our  best 
hopes  are  irrealisable;  that  it  is  the  almost  incredible 
misfortime  of  mankind,  but  also  its  highest  privilege, 
to  aspire  towards  the  impossible;  that  men  have  never 
failed  to  defeat  their  highest  aims  by  the  very  strength 
of  their  humanity  which  can  conceive  the  most  gigantic 
tasks  but  leaves  them  disarmed  before  their  irremedi- 
able littleness.  He  laiows  this  well  because  he  is  an  artist 
and  a  master;  but  he  knows,  too,  that  only  in  the  con- 


34         NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

tiniilty  of  effort  there  is  a  refuge  from  despair  for  minds 
less  clear-seeing  and  philosophic  than  his  own.  There- 
fore he  wishes  us  to  believe  and  to  hope,  preserving  in 
our  activity  the  consoling  illusion  of  power  and  in- 
telligent purpose.     He  is  a  good  and  politic  prince. 

"The  majesty  of  Justice  is  contained  entire  in  each 
sentence  pronounced  by  the  judge  in  the  name  of  the 
sovereign  people.  Jerome  Crainquebille,  hawker  of 
vegetables,  became  aware  of  the  august  aspect  of  the 
law  as  he  stood  indicted  before  the  tribunal  of  the 
higher  Police  Court  on  a  charge  of  insulting  a  constable 
of  the  force."  With  this  exposition  begins  the  first 
tale  of  M.  Anatole  France's  latest  volume. 

The  bust  of  the  Republic  and  the  image  of  the 
Crucified  Christ  appear  side  by  side  above  the  bench 
occupied  by  the  President  Bourriche  and  his  two 
Assessors;  all  the  laws  divine  and  human  are  sus- 
pended over  the  head  of  Crainquebille. 

From  the  first  visual  impression  of  the  accused  and  of 
the  court  the  author  passes  by  a  characteristic  and 
natural  turn  to  the  historical  and  moral  significance  of 
those  two  emblems  of  State  and  Religion  whose  accord 
is  only  possible  to  the  confused  reasoning  of  an  average 
man.  But  the  reasoning  of  M.  Anatole  France  is  never 
confused.  His  reasoning  is  clear  and  informed  by  a 
profound  erudition.  Such  is  not  the  case  of  Crainque- 
bille, a  street-hawker,  charged  with  insulting  the  con- 
stituted power  of  society  in  the  person  of  a  police- 
man. The  charge  is  not  true,  nothing  was  further  from 
his  thoughts;  but,  amazed  by  the  novelty  of  his  position, 
he  does  not  reflect  that  the  Cross  on  the  wall  perpetuates 
the  memory  of  a  sentence  which  for  nineteen  hundred 
years  all  the  Christian  peoples  have  looked  upon  as 
a  grave  miscarriage  of  justice.  He  might  well  have 
challenged   the  President  to  pronounce  any   sort  of 


ANATOLE  FRANCE  35 

sentence,  if  it  were  merely  to  forty-eight  hours  of  simple 
imprisonment,  in  the  name  of  the  Crucified  Redeemer. 

He  might  have  done  so.  But  Crainquebille,  who  has 
lived  pushing  every  day  for  half  a  century  his  hand- 
barrow  loaded  with  vegetables  through  the  streets 
of  Paris,  has  not  a  philosophic  mind.  Truth  to  say  he 
has  nothing.  He  is  one  of  the  disinherited.  Properly 
speaking,  he  has  no  existence  at  all,  or,  to  be  strictly 
truthful,  he  had  no  existence  till  M.  Anatole  France's 
philosophic  mind  and  human  sympathy  have  called  him 
up  from  his  nothingness  for  our  pleasure,  and,  as  the 
title-page  of  the  book  has  it, no  doubt  for  our  profit  also. 

Therefore  we  behold  him  in  the  dock,  a  stranger  to  all 
historical,  political  or  social  considerations  which  can 
be  brought  to  bear  upon  his  case.  He  remains  lost  in 
astonishment.  Penetrated  with  respect,  overwhelmed 
with  awe,  he  is  ready  to  trust  the  judge  upon  the 
question  of  his  transgression.  In  his  conscience  he. 
does  not  think  himself  culpable;  but  M.  Anatole 
France's  philosophical  mind  discovers  for  us  that  he 
feels  all  the  insignificance  of  such  a  thing  as  the  con- 
science of  a  mere  street-hawker  in  the  face  of  the  sym- 
bols of  the  law  and  before  the  ministers  of  social  re- 
pression. Crainquebille  is  innocent;  but  already  the 
young  advocate,  his  defender,  has  half  persuaded  him 
of  his  guilt. 

On  this  phrase  practically  ends  the  introductory 
chapter  of  the  story  which,  as  the  author's  dedication 
states,  has  inspired  an  admirable  draughtsman  and  a 
skilful  dramatist,  each  in  his  art,  to  a  vision  of  tragic 
grandeur.  And  this  opening  chapter  without  a  name — 
consisting  of  two  and  a  half  pages,  some  four  hundred 
words  at  most — is  a  masterpiece  of  insight  and  sim- 
plicity, resumed  in  M.  Anatole  France's  distinction 
of  thought  and  in  his  princely  command  of  words. 


36  NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

It  is  followed  by  six  more  short  chapters,  concise 
and  full,  delicate  and  complete  like  the  petals  of  a 
flower,  presenting  to  us  the  Adventure  of  Crainquebille 
— Crainquebille  before  the  Justice — An  Apology  for 
the  President  of  the  Tribunal — Of  the  Submission  of 
Crainquebille  to  the  Laws  of  the  Republic — Of  his 
Attitude  before  the  Public  Opinion,  and  so  on  to  the 
chapter  of  the  Last  Consequences.  We  see,  created 
for  us  in  his  outward  form  and  innermost  perplexity, 
the  old  man  degraded  from  his  high  estate  of  a  law- 
abiding  street-hawker  and  driven  to  insult,  really  this 
time,  the  majesty  of  the  social  order  in  the  person  of 
another  police-constable.  It  is  not  an  act  of  revolt, 
and  still  less  of  revenge.  Crainquebille  is  too  old,  too 
resigned,  too  weary,  too  guileless  to  raise  the  black 
standard  of  insurrection.  He  is  cold  and  homeless  and 
starving.  He  remembers  the  warmth  and  the  food  of 
the  prison.  He  perceives  the  means  to  get  back  there. 
Since  he  has  been  locked  up,  he  argues  with  himself, 
for  uttering  words  which,  as  a  matter  of  fact  he  did  not 
say,  he  will  go  forth  now,  and  to  the  first  policeman  he 
meets  will  say  those  very  words  in  order  to  be  im- 
prisoned again.  Thus  reasons  Crainquebille  with 
simplicity  and  confidence.  He  accepts  facts.  Noth- 
ing surprises  him.  But  all  the  phenomena  of  social 
organisation  and  of  his  own  life  remain  for  him  myster- 
ious to  the  end.  The  description  of  the  policeman  in 
his  short  cape  and  hood,  who  stands  quite  still,  under 
the  light  of  a  street  lamp  at  the  edge  of  the  pavement 
shining  with  the  wet  of  a  rainy  autumn  evening  along 
the  whole  extent  of  a  long  and  deserted  thoroughfare, 
is  a  j)erfect  piece  of  imaginative  precision.  From 
under  the  edge  of  the  hood  his  eyes  look  upon  Crain- 
quebille, who  has  just  uttered  in  an  uncertain  voice 
the  sacramental,  insulting  phrase  of  the  popular  slang — 


ANATOLE  FRANCE  37 

Mort  aux  vaches!  They  look  upon  him  shining  in  the 
deep  shadow  of  the  hood  with  an  expression  of  sadness, 
vigilance,  and  contempt. 

He  does  not  move.  Craiuquebille,  in  a  feeble  and 
hesitating  voice,  repeats  once  more  the  insulting  words. 
But  this  policeman  is  full  of  philosophic  superiority, 
disdain,  and  indulgence.  He  refuses  to  take  in  charge 
the  old  and  miserable  vagabond  who  stands  before  him 
shivering  and  ragged  in  the  drizzle.  And  the  ruined 
Craiuquebille,  victim  of  a  ridiculous  miscarriage  of 
justice,  appalled  at  this  magnanimity,  passes  on  hope- 
lessly down  the  street  full  of  shadows  where  the  lamps 
gleam  each  in  a  ruddy  halo  of  falling  mist. 

M.  Anatole  France  can  speak  for  the  people.  This 
prince  of  the  Senate  is  invested  with  the  tribunitian 
power.  M.  Anatole  France  is  something  of  a  Socialist; 
and  in  that  respect  he  seems  to  depart  from  his  sceptical 
philosophy.  But  as  an  illustrious  statesman,  now  no 
more,  a  great  prince  too,  with  an  ironic  mind  and  a 
literary  gift,  has  sarcastically  remarked  in  one  of  his 
public  speeches:  "We  are  all  Socialists  now."  And 
in  the  sense  in  which  it  may  be  said  that  we  all  in 
Europe  are  Christians  that  is  true  enough.  To  many 
of  us  Socialism  is  merely  an  emotion.  An  emotion 
is  much  and  is  also  less  than  nothing.  It  is  the  initial 
impulse.  The  real  Socialism  of  to-day  is  a  religion. 
It  has  its  dogmas.  The  value  of  the  dogma  does  not 
consist  in  its  truthfulness,  and  M.  Anatole  France, 
who  loves  truth,  does  not  love  dogma.  Only,  unlike 
religion,  the  cohesive  strength  of  Socialism  lies  not  in 
its  dogmas  but  in  its  ideal.  It  is  perhaps  a  too 
materialistic  ideal,  and  the  mind  of  M.  Anatole  France 
may  not  find  in  it  either  comfort  or  consolation.  It  is 
not  to  be  doubted  that  he  suspects  this  himself;  but 
there  is  something  reposeful  in  the  finality  of  popular 


38  NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

conceptions.  M.  Anatole  France,  a  good  prince  and  a 
good  Republican,  will  succeed  no  doubt  in  being  a 
good  Socialist.  He  will  disregard  tlie  stupidity  of  the 
dogma  and  the  unlovely  form  of  the  ideal.  His  art 
will  find  its  own  beauty  in  the  imaginative  presenta- 
tion of  wrongs,  of  errors,  and  miseries  that  call  aloud 
for  redress.  M.  Anatole  France  is  humane.  He  is 
also  human.  He  may  be  able  to  discard  his  philosophy; 
to  forget  that  the  evils  are  many  and  the  remedies  are 
few,  that  there  is  no  universal  panacea,  that  fatality 
is  invincible,  that  there  is  an  implacable  menace  of 
death  in  the  triumph  of  the  humanitarian  idea.  He 
may  forget  all  that  because  love  is  stronger  than  truth. 
Besides  Crainquebille  this  volume  contains  sixteen 
other  stories  and  sketches.  To  define  them  it  is  enough 
to  say  that  they  are  WTitten  in  M.  Anatole  France's 
prose.  One  sketch  entitled  "Riquet"  may  be  found 
incorporated  in  the  volume  of  "Monsieur  Bergeret  a 
Paris."  "Putois"  is  a  remarkable  little  tale,  significant, 
humorous,  amusing,  and  symbolic.  It  concerns  the 
career  of  a  man  born  in  the  utterance  of  a  hasty  and 
untruthful  excuse  made  by  a  lady  at  a  loss  how  to  de- 
cline without  offence  a  very  pressing  invitation  to 
dinner  from  a  very  tyrannical  aunt.  This  happens  in  a 
provincial  town,  and  the  lady  says  in  effect  "Impossible, 
my  dear  aunt.  To-morrow  I  am  expecting  the  gar- 
dener." And  the  garden  she  glances  at  is  a  poor 
garden;  it  is  a  wild  garden;  its  extent  is  insignificant  and 
its  neglect  seems  beyond  remedy.  "A  gardener! 
What  for?"  asks  the  aunt.  "To  work  in  the  garden." 
And  the  poor  lady  is  abashed  at  the  transparence  of  her 
evasion.  But  the  lie  is  told,  it  is  believed,  and  she 
sticks  to  it.  ^Vhen  the  masterful  old  aunt  inquires, 
"^Vhat  is  the  man's  name,  my  dear.?"  she  answers 
brazenly,    "His  name   is  Putois."     "Where  does  h« 


ANATOLE  FRANCE  39 

live?"  "Oh,  I  don't  know;  anywhere.  He  won't 
give  his  address.  One  leaves  a  message  for  him  here 
and  there."  "Oh!  I  see,"  says  the  other;  "he  is  a  sort 
of  ne'er  do  well,  an  idler,  a  vagabond.  I  advise  you, 
my  dear,  to  be  careful  how  you  let  such  a  creature  into 
your  grounds;  but  I  have  a  large  garden,  and  when 
vou  do  not  want  his  services  I  shall  find  him  some  work 
to  do,  and  see  he  does  it  too.  Tell  your  Putois  to  come 
and  see  me."  And  thereupon  Putois  is  born;  he  stalks 
abroad,  invisible,  upon  his  career  of  vagabondage  and 
crime,  stealing  melons  from  gardens  and  teaspoons  from 
pantries,  indulging  his  licentious  proclivities;  becoming 
the  talk  of  the  town  and  of  the  countryside;  seen 
simultaneously  in  far-distant  places;  pursued  by 
gendarmes,  whose  brigadier  assures  the  uneasy  house- 
holders that  he  "knows  that  scamp  very  well,  and 
won't  be  long  in  laying  his  hands  upon  him."  A 
detailed  description  of  his  person  collected  from  the 
information  furnished  by  various  people  appears  in  the 
columns  of  a  local  newspaper.  Putois  lives  in  his 
strength  and  malevolence.  He  lives  after  the  manner 
of  legendary  heroes,  of  the  gods  of  Olympus.  He  is  the 
creation  of  the  popular  mind.  There  comes  a  time 
when  even  the  innocent  originator  of  that  mysterious 
and  potent  evil-doer  is  induced  to  believe  for  a  moment 
that  he  may  have  a  real  and  tangible  presence.  All  this 
is  told  with  the  wit  and  the  art  and  the  philosophy 
which  is  familiar  to  M.  Anatole  France's  readers  and 
admirers.  For  it  is  difficult  to  read  M.  Anatole  France 
without  admiring  him.  He  has  the  princely  gift  of 
arousing  a  spontaneous  loyalty,  but  with  this  difference, 
that  the  consent  of  our  reason  has  its  place  by  the  side 
of  our  enthusiasm.  He  is  an  artist.  As  an  artist  he 
awakens  emotion.  The  quality  of  his  art  remains,  as 
an  inspiration,  fascmating  and  inscrutable;  but  the 


40         NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

proceedings  of  his  thought  compel  our  intellectual  ad- 
miration. 

In  this  volume  the  trijBe  called  "The  Military 
Manoeuvres  at  Montil,"  apart  from  its  far-reaching 
irony,  embodies  mcidentally  the  very  spirit  of  auto- 
mobilism.  Somehow  or  other,  how  you  cannot  tell, 
the  flight  over  the  country  in  a  motor-car,  its  sensations, 
its  fatigue,  its  vast  topographical  range,  its  incidents 
down  to  the  bursting  of  a  tyre,  are  brought  home  to  you 
with  all  the  force  of  high  imaginative  perception.  It 
would  be  out  of  place  to  analyse  here  the  means  by 
which  the  true  impression  is  conveyed  so  that  the 
absurd  rushing  about  of  General  Decuir,  in  a  30-horse- 
power  car,  in  search  of  his  cavalry  brigade,  becomes  to 
you  a  more  real  experience  than  any  day-and-night  run 
you  may  ever  have  taken  yourself.  Suffice  it  to  say 
that  M.  Anatole  France  had  thought  the  thing  worth 
doing  and  that  it  becomes,  in  virtue  of  his  art,  a  distinct 
achievement.  And  there  are  other  sketches  in  this 
book,  more  or  less  slight,  but  all  worthy  of  regard — the 
childhood's  recollections  of  Professor  Bergeret  and  his 
sister  Zoe;  the  dialogue  of  the  two  upright  judges  and 
the  conversation  of  their  horses;  the  dream  of  M.  Jean 
Marteau,  aimless,  extravagant,  apocalyptic,  and  of 
all  the  dreams  one  ever  dreamt,  the  most  essentially 
dreamlike.  The  vision  of  M.  Anatole  France,  the 
Prince  of  Prose,  ranges  over  all  the  extent  of  his  realm, 
indulgent  and  penetrating,  disillusioned  and  curious, 
finding  treasures  of  truth  and  beauty  concealed  from 
less  gifted  magicians.  Contemplating  the  exactness  of 
his  images  and  the  justice  of  his  judgment,  the  freedom 
of  his  fancy  and  the  fidelity  of  his  purpose,  one  becomes 
aware  of  the  futility  of  literary  watch-words  and 
the  vanity  of  all  the  schools  of  fiction.  Not  that  M. 
Anatole  France  is  a  wild  and  untrammelled  genius.    He 


ANATOLE  FRANCE  41 

IS  not  that.  Issued  legitimately  from  the  past,  he  is 
mindful  of  his  high  descent.  He  has  a  critical  tempera- 
ment joined  to  creative  power.  He  surveys  his  vast 
domain  in  a  spirit  of  princely  moderation  that  knows 
nothing  of  excesses  but  much  of  restraint. 


n 

"L'lLE   DES   PiNGOUINs" 

M.  Anatole  France,  historian  and  adventurer,  haa 
given  us  many  profitable  histories  of  saints  and  sinners, 
of  Roman  procurators  and  of  officials  of  the  Third 
Republic,  of  grandes  dames  and  of  dames  not  so  very 
grand,  of  ornate  Latinists  and  of  inarticulate  street- 
hawkers,  of  priests  and  generals — in  fact,  the  history 
of  all  humanity  as  it  appears  to  his  penetrating  eye, 
serving  a  mind  marvellously  incisive  in  its  scepticism, 
and  a  heart  that,  of  all  contemporary  hearts  gifted  with 
a  voice,  contains  the  greatest  treasure  of  charitable 
irony.  As  to  M.  Anatole  France's  adventures,  these 
are  well-known.  They  lie  open  to  this  prodigal  world  in 
the  four  volumes  of  the  Vie  Litteraire,  describing  the  ad- 
ventures of  a  choice  soul  amongst  masterpieces.  For 
such  is  the  romantic  view  M.  Anatole  France  takes 
of  the  life  of  a  literary  critic.  History  and  adventure, 
then,  seem  to  be  the  chosen  fields  for  the  magnificent 
evolutions  of  M.  Anatole  France's  prose;  but  no  ma- 
terial limits  can  stand  in  the  way  of  a  genius.  The 
latest  book  from  his  pen — which  may  be  called  golden, 
as  the  lips  of  an  eloquent  saint  once  upon  a  time  were 
acclaimed  golden  by  the  faithful — this  latest  book  is,  up 
to  a  certain  point,  a  book  of  travel. 

I  would  not  mislead  a  public  whose  confidence  I 
court.    The  book  is  not  a  record  of  globe-trotting.     I 


42  NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

regret  it.  It  would  have  been  a  joy  to  watcli  M. 
Anatole  France  pouring  the  clear  elixir  compounded 
of  his  Pyrrhonic  philosophy,  his  Benedictine  erudition, 
his  gentle  wit  and  most  humane  irony  into  such  an 
unpromising  and  opaque  vessel.  He  would  have 
attempted  it  in  a  spirit  of  benevolence  towards  his 
fellow  men  and  of  compassion  for  that  life  of  the  earth 
which  is  but  a  vain  and  transitory  illusion.  M.  Anatole 
France  is  a  great  magician,  yet  there  seem  to  be  tasks 
which  he  dare  not  face.     For  he  is  also  a  sage. 

It  is  a  book  of  ocean  travel — not,  however,  as  under- 
stood by  Herr  Ballin  of  Hamburg,  the  Machiavel  of  the 
Atlantic.  It  is  a  book  of  exploration  and  discovery — 
not,  however,  as  conceived  by  an  enterprising  journal 
and  a  shrewdly  philanthropic  king  of  the  nineteenth 
century.  It  is  nothing  so  recent  as  that.  It  dates  much 
further  back;  long,  long  before  the  dark  age  when 
Krupp  of  Essen  wrought  at  his  steel  plates  and  a  Ger- 
man Emperor  condescendingly  suggested  the  last  im- 
provements in  ships'  dining- tables.  The  best  idea  of 
the  inconceivable  antiquity  of  that  enterprise  I  can  give 
you  is  by  stating  the  nature  of  the  explorer's  ship.  It 
was  a  trough  of  stone,  a  vessel  of  hollowed  granite. 

The  explorer  was  St.  Mael,  a  saint  of  Armorica.  I 
had  never  heard  of  him  before,  but  I  believe  now  in  his 
arduous  existence  with  a  faith  which  is  a  tribute  to  M. 
Anatole  France's  pious  earnestness  and  delicate  irony. 
St.  Mael  existed.  It  is  distinctly  stated  of  him  that  his 
life  was  a  progress  in  virtue.  Thus  it  seems  that  there 
may  be  saints  that  are  not  progressively  virtuous.  St. 
Mael  was  not  of  that  kind.  He  was  industrious.  He 
evangelised  the  heathen.  He  erected  two  hundred  and 
eighteen  chapels  and  seventy-four  abbeys.  Indefati- 
gable navigator  of  the  faith,  he  drifted  casually  in  the 
miraculous  trough  of  stone  from  coast  to  coast  and 


ANATOLE  FRANCE  42 

from  island  to  island  along  the  northern  seas.  At  the 
age  of  eighty-four  his  high  stature  was  bowed  by  his 
long  labours,  but  his  sinewy  arms  preserved  their 
vigour  and  his  rude  eloquence  had  lost  nothing  of  its 
force. 

A  nautical  devil  tempting  him  by  the  worldly  sug- 
gestion of  fitting  out  his  desultory,  miraculous  trough 
with  mast,  sail,  and  rudder  for  swifter  progression  (the 
idea  of  haste  has  sprung  from  the  pride  of  Satan),  the 
simple  old  saint  lent  his  ear  to  the  subtle  arguments  of 
the  progressive  enemy  of  mankind. 

The  venerable  St.  Mael  fell  away  from  grace  by  not 
perceiving  at  once  that  a  gift  of  heaven  cannot  be  im- 
proved by  the  contrivances  of  human  ingenuity.  His 
punishment  was  adequate.  A  terrific  tempest  snatched 
the  rigged  ship  of  stone  in  its  whirlwinds,  and,  to  be 
brief,  the  dazed  St.  Mael  was  stranded  violently  on  the 
Island  of  Penguins. 

The  saint  wandered  away  from  the  shore.  It  was  a 
flat,  round  island  whence  rose  in  the  centre  a  conical 
mountain  capped  with  clouds.  The  rain  was  falling 
incessantly — a  gentle,  soft  rain  which  caused  the 
simple  saint  to  exclaim  in  great  delight:  "This  is  the 
island  of  tears,  the  island  of  contrition!" 

Meantime  the  inhabitants  had  flocked  in  their  tens 
of  thousands  to  an  amphitheatre  of  rocks;  they  were 
penguins;  but  the  holy  man,  rendered  deaf  and  purblind 
by  his  years,  mistook  excusably  the  multitude  of  silly, 
erect,  and  self-important  birds  for  a  human  crowd.  At 
once  he  began  to  preach  to  them  the  doctrine  of  sal- 
vation. Having  finished  his  discourse  he  lost  no  time 
in  administering  to  his  interestmg  congregation  the 
sacrament  of  baptism. 

If  you  are  at  all  a  theologian  you  will  see  that  it 
was  no  mean  adventure  to  happen  to  a  well-meaning 


44         NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

and  zealous  saint.  Pray  reflect  on  the  magnitude  of  the 
issues!  It  is  easy  to  believe  what  M.  Anatole  France 
says,  that,  when  the  baptism  of  the  Penguins  became 
known  in  Paradise,  it  caused  there  neither  joy  nor 
sorrow,  but  a  profound  sensation. 

M.  Anatole  France  is  no  mean  theologian  himself. 
He  reports  with  great  casuistical  erudition  the  debates 
in  the  saintly  council  assembled  in  Heaven  for  the 
consideration  of  an  event  so  disturbing  to  the  economy 
of  religious  mysteries.  Ultimately  the  baptized  Pen- 
guins had  to  be  turned  into  human  beings;  and  to- 
gether with  the  privilege  of  sublime  hopes  these  inno- 
cent birds  received  the  curse  of  original  sin,  with  the 
labours,  the  miseries,  the  passions,  and  the  wealmesses 
attached  to  the  fallen  condition  of  humanity. 

At  this  point  M.  Anatole  France  is  again  a  historian. 
From  being  the  Hakluyt  of  a  saintly  adventurer  he 
turns  (but  more  concisely)  into  the  Gibbon  of  Imperial 
Penguins.  Tracing  the  development  of  their  civili- 
zation, the  absurdity  of  their  desires,  the  pathos  of  their 
folly  and  the  ridiculous  littleness  of  their  quarrels,  his 
golden  pen  lightens  by  relevant  but  unpuritanical 
anecdotes  the  austerity  of  a  work  devoted  to  a  subject 
so  gTave  as  the  Polity  of  Penguins.  It  is  a  very  admir- 
able treatment,  and  I  hasten  to  congratulate  all  men 
of  receptive  mind  on  the  feast  of  wisdom  which  is  theirs 
for  the  mere  plucking  of  a  book  from  a  shelf. 


TURGENEV^ 

1917 

Deae  Edward: 

I  am  glad  to  hear  that  you  are  about  to  pubHsh  a 
study  of  Turgenev,  that  fortunate  artist  who  has  found 
so  much  in  hfe  for  us  and  no  doubt  for  himself,  with  the 
exception  of  bare  justice.  Perhaps  that  will  come  to 
him,  too,  in  time.  Your  study  may  help  the  consum 
mation.  For  his  luck  persists  after  his  death.  \Miat 
greater  luck  an  artist  like  Turgenev  could  wish  for  than 
to  find  in  the  English-speaking  world  a  translator  who 
has  missed  none  of  the  most  delicate,  most  simple 
beauties  of  his  work,  and  a  critic  who  has  known  how 
to  analyse  and  point  out  its  high  qualities  with  perfect 
sympathy  and  insight. 

After  twenty  odd  years  of  friendship  (and  my  first 
literary  friendship  too)  I  may  well  permit  myself  to 
make  that  statement,  while  thinking  of  your  wonderful 
Prefaces  as  they  appeared  from  time  to  time  in  the 
volumes  of  Turgenev's  complete  edition,  the  last  of 
which  came  into  the  light  of  public  indifference  in  the 
ninety-ninth  year  of  the  nineteenth  century. 

With  that  year  one  may  say,  with  some  justice,  that 
the  age  of  Turgenev  had  come  to  an  end  too;  yet  work 
so  simple  and  human,  so  independent  of  the  transitory 
formulas  and  theories  of  art,  belongs  as  you  point  out  in 
the  Preface  to  "Smoke"  "to  all  time." 

Turgenev's    creative   activity   covers   about   thirty 

^  "Turgenev:    A  Study."     By  Edward  Garnett. 

4,5 


46         NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

years.  Since  it  came  to  an  end  the  social  and  political 
events  in  Russia  have  moved  at  an  accelerated  pace, 
but  the  deep  origins  of  them,  in  the  moral  and  intellec- 
tual unrest  of  the  souls,  are  recorded  in  the  whole  body 
of  his  work  with  the  unerring  lucidity  of  a  great  national 
writer.  The  first  stirrings,  the  first  gleams  of  the  great 
forces  can  be  seen  almost  in  every  page  cf  the  novels,  of 
the  short  stories  and  of  "A  Sportsman's  Sketches" — 
those  marvellous  landscapes  peopled  by  unforgettable 
figures. 

Those  will  never  grov/  old.  Fashions  in  monsters  do 
change,  but  the  truth  cf  humanity  goes  on  for  ever, 
unchangeable  and  inexliaustible  m  the  variety  of  its 
disclosures.  Whether  Turgenev's  art,  which  has  cap- 
tured it  with  such  mastery  and  such  gentleness,  is  for 
"all  time"  it  is  hard  to  say.  Since,  as  you  say  yourself, 
he  brings  all  his  problems  and  characters  to  the  test  of 
love  we  may  hope  that  it  will  endure  at  least  till  the 
infinite  emotions  of  love  are  replaced  by  the  exact 
simplicity  of  perfected  Eugenics.  But  even  by  then,  I 
think,  women  would  not  have  changed  much;  and  the 
women  of  Turgenev  who  understood  them  so  tenderly, 
so  reverently  and  so  passionately — they,  at  least,  are 
certainly  for  all  time. 

Women  are,  one  may  say,  the  foundation  of  his  art. 
They  are  Russian  of  course.  Never  was  a  writer  so 
profoundly,  so  whole-souledly  national.  But  for  non- 
Russian  readers,  Turgenev's  Russia  is  but  a  canvas  on 
which  tke  incomparable  artist  of  humanity  lays  his 
colours  and  his  forms  in  the  great  light  and  the  free  air 
of  the  world.  Had  he  invented  them  all  and  also  every 
stick  and  stone,  brook  and  hill  and  field  in  which  they 
move,  his  personages  would  have  been  just  as  true  and 
as  poignant  in  their  perplexed  lives.  They  are  his  own 
and  also  universal.    Any  one  can  accept  them  with 


TURGENEV  47 

no  more  question  than  one  accepts  the  Italians  of 
Shakespeare. 

In  the  larger,  non-Russian  view,  what  should  make 
Turgenev  sympathetic  and  welcome  to  the  English- 
speaking  world,  is  his  essential  humanity.  All  his 
creations,  fortunate  and  unfortunate,  oppress'^d  and  op- 
pressors are  human  beings,  not  strange  beasts  in  a  men- 
agerie or  damned  souls  knocking  themselves  to  pieces 
in  the  stuffy  darkness  of  mystical  contradictions.  They 
are  human  beings,  fit  to  live,  fit  to  suffer,  fit  to  struggle, 
fit  to  win,  fit  to  lose,  in  the  endless  and  inspiring 
game  of  pursuing  from  day  to  day  the  ever-receding 
future. 

I  began  by  calling  him  lucky,  and  he  was,  in  a  sense. 
But  one  ends  by  having  some  doubts.  To  be  so  great 
without  the  slightest  parade  and  so  fine  without  any 
tricks  of  "cleverness"  must  be  fatal  to  any  man's 
influence  with  his  contemporaries. 

Frankly,  I  don't  want  to  appear  as  qualified  to  judge 
of  things  Russian.  It  wouldn't  be  true.  I  know  noth- 
ing of  them.  But  I  am  aware  of  a  few  general  truths, 
such  as,  for  instance,  that  no  man,  whatever  may  be  the 
loftiness  of  his  character,  the  purity  of  his  motives  and 
the  peace  of  his  conscience — no  man,  I  say,  likes  to  be 
beaten  with  sticks  during  the  greater  part  of  his  exist- 
ence. From  what  one  knows  of  his  history  it  appears 
clearly  that  in  Russia  almost  any  stick  was  good  enough 
to  beat  Turgenev  with  in  his  latter  years.  When  he 
died  the  characteristically  chicken-hearted  Autocracy 
hastened  to  stuff  his  mortal  envelope  into  the  tomb 
it  refused  to  honour,  while  the  sensitive  Revolutionists 
went  on  for  a  time  flinging  after  his  shade  those  jeers 
and  curses  from  which  that  impartial  lover  of  all  his 
countrymen  had  suffered  so  much  in  his  lifetime.  For 
he,  too,  was  sensitive.     Every  page  of  his  writing  bears 


48  NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

its  testimony  to  the  fatal  absence  of  callousness  in  the 
man. 

And  now  he  suffers  a  little  from  other  things.  In 
truth  it  is  not  the  convulsed  terror-haunted  Dostoevski 
but  the  serene  Turgenev  who  is  under  a  curse.  For  only 
think!  Every  gift  has  been  heaped  on  his  cradle: 
absolute  sanity  and  the  deepest  sensibility,  the  clearest 
vision  and  the  quickest  responsiveness,  penetrating  in- 
sight and  unfailing  generosity  of  judgment,  an  exquisite 
perception  of  the  visible  world  and  an  unerring  instinct 
for  the  significant,  for  the  essential  in  the  life  of  men 
and  women,  the  clearest  mind,  the  warmest  heart,  the 
largest  sympathy — and  all  that  in  perfect  measure. 
There's  enough  there  to  ruin  the  prospects  of  any 
writer.  For  you  know  very  well,  my  dear  Edward,  that 
if  you  had  Antinous  himself  in  a  booth  of  the  world's 
fair,  and  killed  yourself  in  protesting  that  his  soul  was 
as  perfect  as  his  body,  you  wouldn't  get  one  per  cent  of 
the  crowd  struggling  next  door  for  a  sight  of  the  Double 
headed  Nightingale  or  of  some  weak-kneed  giant  grin* 
ning  through  a  horse  collar. 


STEPHEN  CRANE 

A  Note  Without  Dates 

1919 

My  acquaintance  with  Stephen  Crane  was  brought 
about  by  Mr.  Pawling,  partner  in  the  publishing  firm  of 
Mr.  William  Heinemann. 

One  day  Mr.  Pawling  said  to  me:  "Stephen  Crane 
has  arrived  in  England.  I  asked  him  if  there  was  any^ 
body  he  wanted  to  meet  and  he  mentioned  two  names. 
One  of  them  was  yours."  I  had  then  just  been  readings 
like  the  rest  of  the  world,  Crane's  "Red  Badge  of 
Courage."  The  subject  of  that  story  was  war,  from 
the  point  of  view  of  an  individual  soldier's  emotions. 
That  individual  (he  remains  nameless  throughout)  was 
interesting  enough  in  himself,  but  on  turning  over  the 
pages  of  that  little  book  which  had  for  the  moment 
secured  such  a  noisy  recognition  I  had  been  even  more 
interested  in  the  personality  of  the  writer.  The  picture 
of  a  simple  and  untried  youth  becoming  through  the 
needs  of  his  country  part  of  a  great  fighting  machine 
was  presented  with  an  earnestness  of  purpose,  a  sense  of 
tragic  issues,  and  an  imaginative  force  of  expression 
which  struck  me  as  quite  uncommon  and  altogether 
worthy  of  admiration. 

Apparently  Stephen  Crane  had  received  a  favourable 
impression  from  the  reading  of  the  "Nigger  of  the  Nar- 
cmw5,"  a  book  of  mine  which  had  also  been  published 
lately.    I  was  truly  pleased  to  hear  this. 

49 


50  NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

On  my  next  visit  to  town  we  met  at  a  lunch.  I  saw  a 
young  man  of  medium  stature  and  slender  build,  with 
very  steady,  penetrating  blue  eyes,  the  eyes  of  a  being 
who  not  only  sees  visions  but  can  brood  over  them  to 
some  purpose. 

He  had  indeed  a  wonderful  power  of  vision,  which  he 
applied  to  the  things  of  this  earth  and  of  our  mortal 
humanity  with  a  penetrating  force  that  seemed  to  reach, 
within  life's  appearances  and  forms,  the  very  spirit  of 
life's  truth.  His  ignorance  of  the  world  at  large — he  had 
seen  very  little  of  it— did  not  stand  in  the  way  of  his 
imaginative  grasp  of  facts,  events,  and  picturesque 
men. 

His  manner  was  very  quiet,  his  personality  at  first 
sight  interesting,  and  he  talked  slowly  with  an  into- 
nation which  on  some  people,  mainly  Americans,  had, 
I  believe,  a  jarring  effect.  But  not  on  me.  Whatever 
he  said  had  a  personal  note,  and  he  expressed  himself 
with  a  graphic  simplicity  which  was  extremely  engag- 
ing. He  knew  little  of  literature,  either  of  his  own 
country  or  of  any  other,  but  he  was  himself  a  wonderful 
artist  in  words  whenever  he  took  a  pen  into  his  hand. 
Then  his  gift  came  out — and  it  was  seen  then  to  be  much 
more  than  mere  felicity  of  language.  His  impression- 
ism of  phrase  went  really  deeper  than  the  surface.  In 
his  writing  he  was  very  sure  of  his  effects.  I  don't 
think  he  was  ever  in  doubt  about  what  he  could  do. 
Yet  it  often  seemed  to  me  that  he  was  but  half  aware 
of  the  exceptional  quality  of  his  achievement. 

This  achievement  was  curtailed  by  his  early  death. 
It  was  a  great  loss  to  his  friends,  but  perhaps  not  so 
much  to  literature.  I  think  that  he  had  given  his 
measure  fully  in  the  few  books  he  had  the  time  to  write. 
Xiet  me  not  be  misunderstood :  the  loss  was  great,  but 
it  was  the  loss  of  the  delight  his  art  could  give,  not  the 


STEPHEN  CRANE  51 

loss  of  any  further  possible  revelation.  As  to  himself, 
who  can  say  how  much  he  gained  or  lost  by  quitting 
so  early  this  world  of  the  living,  which  he  knew  how  to 
set  before  us  in  the  terms  of  his  own  artistic  vision? 
Perhaps  he  did  not  lose  a  great  deal.  The  recognition 
he  was  accorded  was  rather  languid  and  given  him 
grudgingly.  The  worthiest  welcome  he  secured  for 
his  tales  in  this  country  was  from  Mr.  W.  Henley  in  the 
New  Review  and  later,  towards  the  end  of  his  life,  from 
the  late  Mr.  William  Blackwood  in  his  magazine.  For 
the  rest  I  must  say  that  during  his  sojourn  in  England 
he  had  the  misfortune  to  be,  as  the  French  say,  mal 
entoure.  He  was  beset  by  people  who  understood  not 
the  quality  of  his  genius  and  were  antagonistic  to  tlie 
deeper  fineness  of  his  nature.  Some  of  them  have  died 
since,  but  dead  or  alive  they  are  not  worth  speaking 
about  now.  I  don't  think  he  had  any  illusions  about 
them  himself:  yet  there  was  a  strain  of  good-nature 
and  perhaps  of  weakness  in  his  character  which  pre- 
vented him  from  shaking  himself  free  from  their  worth- 
less and  patronizing  attentions,  which  in  those  days 
caused  me  much  secret  irritation  whenever  I  stayed 
with"  him  in  either  of  his  English  homes.  My  wife  and 
I  like  best  to  remember  him  riding  to  meet  us  at  the 
gate  of  the  Park  at  Brede.  Born  master  of  his  sincere 
impressions,  he  was  also  a  born  horseman.  He  never 
appeared  so  happy  or  so  much  to  advantage  as  on  the 
back  of  a  horse.  He  had  formed  the  project  of  teach- 
ing my  eldest  boy  to  ride  and  meantime,  when  the 
child  was  about  two  years  old,  presented  him  with  his 
first  dog. 

I  saw  Stephen  Crane  a  few  days  aft«r  his  arrival  in 
London.  I  saw  him  for  the  last  time  on  his  last  day  in 
England.  It  was  in  Dover,  in  a  big  hotel,  in  a  bedroom 
witli  a  large  window  looking  on  to  the  sea.     He  had 


52  NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

been  very  ill  and  Mrs.  Crane  was  taking  liim  to  some 
place  in  Germany,  but  one  glance  at  that  wasted  face 
was  enough  to  tell  me  that  it  was  the  most  forlorn  of  all 
hopes.  The  last  words  he  breathed  out  to  me  were: 
"I  am  tired.  Give  my  love  to  your  wife  and  child." 
When  I  stopped  at  the  door  for  another  look  I  saw  that 
he  had  turned  his  head  on  the  pillow  and  was  staring 
wistfully  out  of  the  window  at  the  sails  of  a  cutter  yacht 
that  glided  slowly  across  the  frame,  like  a  dim  shadow 
against  the  grey  sky. 

Those  who  have  read  his  little  tale,  "Horses,"  and  the 
story,  "The  Open  Boat,"  in  the  volume  of  that  name, 
know  with  what  fine  understanding  he  loved  horses 
and  the  sea.  And  his  passage  on  this  earth  was  like 
that  of  a  horseman  riding  swiftly  in  the  dawn  of  a  day 
fated  to  be  short  and  without  sunshine. 


TALES  OF  THE  SEA 

1898 

It  is  by  his  irresistible  power  to  reach  the  adventu- 
rous side  in  the  character,  not  only  of  his  own  but  of  all 
nations,  that  Marryat  is  largely  human.  He  is  the 
enslaver  of  youth,  not  by  the  literary  artifices  of 
presentation,  but  by  the  natural  glamour  of  his  own 
temperament.  To  his  young  heroes  the  beginning  of 
life  is  a  splendid  and  warlike  lark,  ending  at  last  in 
inheritance  and  marriage.  His  novels  are  not  the  out- 
come of  his  art,  but  of  his  character,  like  the  deeds  that 
make  up  his  record  of  naval  service.  To  the  artist 
his  work  is  interesting  as  a  completely  successful  ex- 
pression of  an  unartistic  nature.  It  is  absolutely 
amazing  to  us,  as  the  disclosure  of  the  spirit  animating 
the  stirring  time  when  the  nineteenth  century  v/as 
young.  There  is  an  air  of  fable  about  it.  Its  loss 
would  be  irreparable,  like  the  curtailment  of  national 
story  or  the  loss  of  a  historical  document.  It  is  the 
beginning  and  the  embodiment  of  an  inspiring  tradition. 

To  this  writer  of  the  sea  the  sea  was  not  an  element. 
It  was  a  stage,  where  was  displayed  an  exhibition  of 
valour,  and  of  such  achievement  as  the  w^orld  had  never 
seen  before.  The  greatnes^s  of  that  achievement  can- 
not be  pronounced  imagiiiary,  since  its  reality  has 
affected  the  destinies  of  nations;  nevertheless,  in  its 
grandeur  it  has  all  the  remoteness  of  an  ideal.  His- 
tory preserves  the  skeleton  of  facts  and,  here  and 
there,  a  figure  or  a  name;  but  it  is  in  Marry at's  novels 


54  NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

that  we  find  the  mass  of  the  nameless,  that  we  see  them 
in  the  flesh,  that  we  obtain  a  ghmpse  of  the  everyday 
hfe  and  an  insight  into  the  spirit  animating  the  crowd 
of  obscure  men  who  knew  how  to  build  for  their  country 
such  a  shining  monument  of  memories. 

Marryat  is  really  a  writer  of  the  Service.  WTiat  sets 
him  apart  is  his  fidelity.  His  pen  serves  his  country 
as  well  as  did  his  professional  skill  and  his  renowned 
courage.  His  figures  move  about  between  water  and 
sky,  and  the  water  and  the  sky  are  there  only  to  frame 
the  deeds  of  the  Service.  His  novels,  like  amphibious 
creatures,  live  on  the  sea  and  frequent  the  shore,  where 
they  flounder  deplorably.  The  loves  and  the  hates  of 
his  boys  are  as  primitive  as  their  virtues  and  their  vices. 
His  women,  from  the  beautiful  Agnes  to  the  witch-like 
mother  of  Lieutenant  Vanslyperken,  are,  with  the  ex- 
ception of  the  sailors'  wives,  like  the  shadows  of  what 
has  never  been.  His  Silvas,  his  Ribieras,  his  Shriftens, 
his  Delmars  remind  us  of  people  we  have  heard  of  some- 
where, many  times,  without  ever  believing  in  their 
existence.  His  morality  is  honourable  and  conventional. 
There  is  cruelty  in  his  fun  and  he  can  invent  puns  in  the 
midst  of  carnage.  His  naiveties  are  perpetrated  in  a 
lurid  light.  There  is  an  endless  variety  of  types,  all 
surface,  with  hard  edges,  with  memorable  eccentricities 
of  outline,  with  a  childish  and  heroic  effect  in  the  draw- 
ing. They  do  not  belong  to  Hfe;  they  belong  exclu- 
sively to  the  Service.  And  yet  they  live;  there  is  a 
truth  in  them,  the  truth  of  their  time;  a  headlong,  reck- 
less audacity,  an  intimacy  with  violence,  an  unthinking 
fearlessness,  and  an  exuberance  of  vitality  which  only 
years  of  war  and  victories  can  give.  His  adventures  are 
enthralling;  the  rapidity  of  his  action  fascinates;  his 
method  is  crude,  his  sentimentality,  obviously  incidental, 
is  often  factitious.     His  greatness  is  undeniable. 


TALES  OF  THE  SEA  55 

It  is  undeniable.  To  a  multitude  of  readers  the  navy 
of  to-day  is  Marryat's  navy  still.  He  has  created  a 
priceless  legend.  If  he  be  not  immortal,  yet  he  will 
last  long  enough  for  the  highest  ambition,  because  he 
has  dealt  manfully  with  an  inspiring  phase  in  the 
history  of  that  Service  on  which  the  life  of  his  country 
depends.  The  tradition  of  the  gi-eat  past  he  has  fixed 
in  his  pages  will  be  cherished  for  ever  as  the  guarantee 
of  the  future.  He  loved  his  country  first,  the  Service 
next,  the  sea  perhaps  not  at  all.  But  the  sea  loved  him 
without  reserve.  It  gave  him  his  professional  distinc- 
tion and  his  author's  fame — a  fame  such  as  not  often 
falls  to  the  lot  of  a  true  artist. 

At  the  same  time,  on  the  other  side  of  the  Atlantic, 
another  man  wrote  of  the  sea  with  true  artistic  instinct. 
He  is  not  invincibly  young  and  heroic;  he  is  mature  and 
human,  though  for  him  also  the  stress  of  adventure  and 
endeavour  must  end  fatally  in  inheritance  and  marriage, 
Eor  James  Fenimore  Cooper  nature  was  not  the  frame- 
work, it  was  an  essential  part  of  existence.  He  could 
hear  its  voice,  he  could  understand  its  silence,  and  he 
could  interpret  both  for  us  in  his  prose  with  all  that 
felicity  and  sureness  of  effect  that  belong  to  a  poetical 
conception  alone.  His  fame,  as  wide  but  less  brilliant 
than  that  of  his  contemporary,  rests  mostly  on  a  novel 
which  is  not  of  the  sea.  But  he  loved  the  sea  and 
looked  at  it  with  consummate  understanding.  In  his 
sea  tales  the  sea  inter-penetrates  with  life;  it  is  in  a 
subtle  way  a  factor  in  the  problem  of  existence,  and, 
for  all  its  greatness,  it  is  always  in  touch  with  the  men, 
who,  bound  on  errands  of  war  or  gain,  traverse  its 
immense  solitudes.  His  descriptions  have  the  magis- 
tral ampleness  of  a  gesture  indicating  the  sweep  of  a 
vast  horizon.  They  embrace  the  colours  of  sunset,  the 
peace  of  starhght,  the  aspects  of  calm  and  storm,  the 


56  NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

great  loneliness  of  the  waters,  the  stillness  of  watchful 
coasts,  and  the  alert  readiness  which  marks  men  who 
live  face  to  face  with  the  promise  and  the  menace  of  the 
sea. 

He  knows  the  men  and  he  knows  the  sea.  His  method 
may  be  often  faulty,  but  his  art  is  genuine.  The  truth 
is  within  him.  The  road  to  legitimate  realism  is 
through  poetical  feeling,  and  he  possesses  that — only  it 
is  expressed  in  the  leisurely  manner  of  his  time.  He 
has  the  knowledge  of  simple  hearts.  Long  Tom  Coffin 
is  a  monumental  seaman  with  the  individuality  of  life 
and  the  significance  of  a  tyj)e.  It  is  hard  to  believe  that 
Manual  and  Borroughcliffe,  Mr.  Marble  of  Marble- 
Head,  Captain  Tuck  of  the  packet-ship  Montauk,  or 
Daggett,  the  tenacious  commander  of  the  Sea  Lion  of 
Martha's  Vineyard,  must  pass  away  some  day  and  be 
utterly  forgotten.  His  sympathy  is  large,  and  his 
humour  is  as  genuine — and  as  perfectly  unaffected — as 
is  his  art.  In  certain  passages  he  reaches,  very  simply, 
the  heights  of  inspired  vision. 

He  wrote  before  the  great  American  language  was 
born,  and  he  wrote  as  well  as  any  novelist  of  his  time. 
If  he  pitches  upon  episodes  redounding  to  the  glory  of 
the  young  republic,  surely  England  has  glory  enough  to 
forgive  him,  for  the  sake  of  his  excellence,  the  patriotic 
bias  at  her  expense.  The  interest  of  his  tales  is  con- 
vincing and  unflagging;  and  there  runs  through  his 
work  a  steady  vein  of  friendliness  for  the  old  coimtry 
which  the  succeeding  generations  of  his  compatriots 
have  replaced  by  a  less  definite  sentiment. 

Perhaps  no  two  authors  of  fiction  influenced  so  many 
lives  and  gave  to  so  many  the  initial  impulse  towards 
a  glorious  or  a  useful  career.  Through  the  distances 
of  space  and  time  those  two  men  of  another  race  have 
shaped  also  the  Hfe  of  the  writer  of  this  appreciation. 


TALES  OF  THE  SEA  57 

Life  is  life,  and  art  is  art — and  truth  is  hard  to  find  in 
either.  Yet  in  testimony  to  the  achievement  of  both 
these  authors  it  may  be  said  that,  in  the  case  of  the 
writer  at  least,  the  youthful  glamour,  the  headlong 
vitality  of  the  one  and  the  profound  sympathy,  the 
artistic  insight  of  the  other — to  which  he  had  sur- 
rendered— have  withstood  the  brutal  shock  of  facts  and 
the  wear  of  laborious  years.  He  has  never  regretted 
his  surrender. 


AN  OBSERVER  IN  IVIALAYA^ 
1898 

In  his  new  volume,  Mr.  Hugh  Clifford,  at  the  begin- 
ning of  the  sketch  entitled  "At  the  Heels  of  the  White 
Man,"  expresses  his  anxiety  as  to  the  state  of  Eng- 
land's account  in  the  Day-Book  of  the  Recording  An- 
gel "for  the  good  and  the  bad  we  have  done — both 
with  the  most  excellent  intentions."  The  intentions 
will,  no  doubt,  count  for  something,  though,  of  course, 
every  nation's  conquests  are  paved  with  good  inten- 
tions; or  it  may  be  that  the  Recording  Angel,  looking 
compassionately  at  the  strife  of  hearts,  may  disdain  to 
enter  into  the  Eternal  Book  the  facts  of  a  struggle  which 
has  the  reward  of  its  righteousness  even  on  this  earth — 
in  victory  and  lasting  greatness,  or  in  defeat  and 
humiliation. 

And,  also,  love  will  count  for  much.  If  the  opinion 
of  a  looker-on  from  afar  is  v/orth  anything,  Mr.  Hugh 
Clifford's  anxiety  about  his  country's  record  is  needless. 
To  the  Malays  whom  he  governs,  instructs,  and  guides 
he  is  the  embodiment  of  the  intentions,  of  the  con- 
science and  might  of  his  race.  And  of  all  the  nations 
conquering  distant  territories  in  the  name  of  the  most 
excellent  intentions,  England  alone  sends  out  men  who, 
with  such  a  transparent  sincerity  of  feeling,  can  speak, 
as  Mr.  Clifford  does,  of  the  place  of  toil  and  exile  as 
"the  land  which  is  very  dear  to  me,  where  the  best  years 
of  my  life  have  been  spent" — and  where   (I  would 

*  "Studies  in  Brown  Humanity."     By  Hugh  Clifford. 


AN  OBSERVER  IN  MALAYA  59 

stake  my  right  hand  on  it)  his  name  is  pronounced  with 
respect  and  affection  by  those  brown  men  about  whom 
he  writes. 

All  these  studies  are  on  a  high  level  of  interest, 
though  not  all  on  the  same  level.  The  descriptive 
chapters,  results  of  personal  observation,  seem  to  me 
the  most  interesting.  And,  indeed,  in  a  book  of  this 
kind  it  is  the  author's  personality  which  awakens  the 
greatest  interest;  it  shapes  itself  before  one  in  the  ring 
of  sentences,  it  is  seen  between  the  lines — like  the 
progress  of  a  traveller  in  the  jungle  that  may  be  traced 
by  the  sound  of  the  parang  chopping  the  swaying 
creepers,  while  the  man  himself  is  glimpsed,  now  and 
then,  indistinct  and  passing  between  the  trees.  Thus 
in  his  very  vagueness  of  appearance,  the  writer  seen 
through  the  leaves  of  his  book  becomes  a  fascinating 
companion  in  a  land  of  fascination. 

It  is  when  dealing  with  the  aspects  of  nature  that  Mr. 
Hugh  Clifford  is  most  convincing.  He  looks  upon  them 
lovingly,  for  the  land  is  "very  dear  to  him,"  and  he 
records  his  cherished  impressions  so  that  the  forest,  the 
great  flood,  the  jungle,  the  rapid  river,  and  the  menac- 
ing rock  dwell  in  the  memory  of  the  reader  long  after 
the  book  is  closed.  He  does  not  say  anything,  in  so 
many  words,  of  his  affection  for  those  who  live  amid 
the  scenes  he  describes  so  well,  but  his  humanity  is 
large  enough  to  pardon  us  if  we  suspect  him  of  such 
a  rare  weakness.  In  his  preface  he  expresses  the  re- 
gret at  not  having  the  gifts  (whatever  they  may  be)  of 
the  kailyard  school,  or — looking  up  to  a  very  different 
plane — the  genius  of  Mr.  Barrie.  He  has,  however, 
gifts  of  his  own,  and  his  genius  has  served  his  country 
and  his  fortunes  in  another  direction.  Yet  it  is  when 
attempting  what  he  professes  himself  unable  to  do,  in 
telling  us  the  simple  story  of  Umat,  the  punkah-puller 


60  NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

with  unaffected  simplicity  and  half-concealed  tender- 
ness, that  he  comes  nearest  to  artistic  achievement. 

Each  study  in  this  volume  presents  some  idea,  il- 
lustrated by  a  fact  told  without  artifice,  but  with  an 
effective  sureness  of  knowledge.  The  story  of  Tukang 
Burok's  love,  related  in  the  old  man's  own  words,  con- 
veys the  very  breath  of  Malay  thought  and  speech. 
In  "His  Little  Bill,"  the  coolie,  Lim  Teng  Wah,  facing 
his  debtor,  stands  very  distinct  before  us,  an  insignifi- 
cant and  tragic  victim  of  fate  with  whom  he  had 
quarrelled  to  the  death  over  a  matter  of  seven  dollars 
and  sixty-eight  cents.  The  story  of  *'The  Schooner 
with  a  Past"  may  be  heard,  from  the  Straits  eastward, 
with  many  variations.  Out  in  the  Pacific  the  schoonei: 
becomes  a  cutter,  and  the  pearl-divers  are  replaced  by 
the  Black-birds  of  the  Labour  Trade.  But  Mr.  Hugh 
Clifford's  variation  is  very  good.  There  is  a  passage 
in  it — a  trifle — just  the  diver  as  seen  coming  from  the 
depths,  that  in  its  dozen  lines  or  so  attains  to  distinct 
artistic  value.  And,  scattered  through  the  book,  there 
are  many  other  passages  of  almost  equal  descriptive 
excellence. 

Nevertheless,  to  apply  artistic  standards  to  this  book 
would  be  a  fundamental  error  in  appreciation.  Like 
faith,  enthusiasm,  or  heroism,  art  veils  part  of  the  truth 
of  life  to  make  the  rest  appear  more  splendid,  inspiring, 
or  sinister.  And  this  book  is  only  truth,  interesting  and 
futile,  truth  unadorned,  simple  and  straightforward. 
The  Resident  of  Pahang  has  the  devoted  friendship  of 
Umat,  the  punkah-puller,  he  has  an  individual  faculty 
of  vision,  a  large  sympathy,  and  the  scrupulous  con- 
sciousness of  the  good  and  evil  in  his  hands.  He  may 
as  well  rest  content  with  such  gifts.  One  cannot  expect 
to  be,  at  the  same  time,  a  ruler  of  men  and  an  irre« 
proachable  player  on  the  flute. 


A  HAPPY  WANDERER 

1910 

Converts  are  interesting  people.  Most  of  us,  if  you 
will  pardon  me  for  betraying  the  universal  secret,  have, 
at  some  time  or  other,  discovered  in  ourselves  a  readiness 
to  stray  far,  ever  so  far,  on  the  wrong  road.  And  what 
did  we  do  in  our  pride  and  our  cowardice.'^  Casting 
fearful  glances  and  waiting  for  a  dark  moment,  we 
buried  our  discovery  discreetly,  and  kept  on  in  the  old 
direction,  on  that  old,  beaten  track  we  have  not  had 
courage  enough  to  leave,  and  which  we  perceive  now 
more  clearly  than  before  to  be  but  the  arid  way  of  the 
grave. 

The  convert,  the  man  capable  of  grace  (I  am  speaking 
here  in  a  secular  sense),  is  not  discreet.  His  pride  is 
of  another  kind;  he  jumps  gladly  off  the  track — the 
touch  of  grace  is  mostly  sudden — and  facing  about  in  a 
new  direction  may  even  attain  the  illusion  of  having 
turned  his  back  on  Death  itself. 

Some  converts  have,  indeed,  earned  immortality  by 
their  exquisite  indiscretion.  The  most  illustrious  ex- 
ample of  a  convert,  that  Flower  of  chivalry,  Don 
Quixote  de  la  Mancha,  remains  for  all  the  world  the  only 
genuine  immortal  hidalgo.  The  delectable  Knight  of 
Spain  became  converted,  as  you  know,  from  the  ways  of 
a  small  country  squire  to  an  imperative  faith  in  a  tender 
and  sublime  mission.  Forthwith  he  was  beaten  with 
sticks  and  in  due  course  shut  up  in  a  wooden  cage  by 
the  Barber  and  the  Priest,  the  fit  ministers  of  a  justly 
shocked  social  order.     I  do  not  know  if  it  has  occurred 

61 


62         NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

to  anybody  yet  to  shut  up  Mr.  Luffmann  in  a  wooden 
cage/  I  do  not  raise  the  point  because  I  wish  him  any 
harm.  Quite  the  contrary.  I  am  a  humane  person. 
Let  him  take  it  as  the  highest  praise— but  I  must  say 
that  he  richly  deserves  that  sort  of  attention. 

On  the  other  hand  I  would  not  have  him  imduly 
puffed  up  with  the  pride  of  the  exalted  association. 
The  grave  wisdom,  the  admirable  amenity,  tlie  serene 
grace  of  the  secular  patron-saint  of  all  mortals  converted 
to  noble  visions  are  not  his.  Mr.  Luffmann  has  no  mis- 
sion. He  is  no  Knight  sublimely  Errant.  But  he  is 
an  excellent  Vagabond.  He  is  full  of  merit.  That 
peripatetic  guide,  philosopher  and  friend  of  all  nations, 
Mr.  Roosevelt,  would  promptly  excommunicate  him 
with  a  big  stick.  The  truth  is  that  the  ex-autocrat  of 
all  the  States  does  not  like  rebels  against  the  sullen 
order  of  our  universe.  Make  the  best  of  it  or  perish — 
he  cries.  A  sane  lineal  successor  of  the  Barber  and  the 
Priest,  and  a  sagacious  political  heir  of  the  incompa- 
rable Sancho  Panza  (another  great  Governor),  that 
distinguished  litterateur  has  no  mercy  for  dreamers. 
And  our  author  happens  to  be  a  man  of  (you  may  trace 
them  in  his  books)  some  rather  fine  reveries. 

Every  convert  begins  by  being  a  rebel,  and  I  do  not 
see  myself  how  any  mercy  can  possibly  be  extended  to 
Mr.  Luffmann.  He  is  a  convert  from  the  creed  of 
strenuous  life.  For  this  renegade  the  body  is  of  little 
account;  to  him  work  appears  criminal  when  it  sup- 
presses the  demands  of  the  inner  life;  while  he  was 
young  he  did  grind  virtuously  at  the  sacred  handle,  and 
now,  he  says,  he  has  fallen  into  disgrace  with  some 
people  because  he  believes  no  longer  in  toil  without  end. 
Certain  respectable  folk  hate  him — so  he  says — because 


1" Quiet  Days  in  Spain,"  by  C.  Bogue  Lixffmann. 


A  HAPPY  WANDERER  63 

he  dares  to  think  that  "poetry,  beauty,  and  the  broad 
face  of  the  world  are  the  best  things  to  be  in  love 
with."  He  confesses  to  loving  Spain  on  the  ground  that 
she  is  "the  land  of  to-morrow,  and  holds  the  gospel  of 
never-mind."  The  universal  striving  to  push  ahead  he 
considers  mere  vulgar  folly.  Didn't  I  tell  you  he  was 
a  fit  subject  for  the  cage? 

It  is  a  relief  (we  are  all  humane,  are  we  not?)  to  dis- 
cover that  this  desperate  character  is  not  altogether 
an  outcast.  Little  girls  seem  to  lils:e  him.  One  of  them, 
after  listening  to  some  of  his  tales,  remarked  to  her 
mother,  "Wouldn't  it  be  lovely  if  what  he  says  were 
true!"  Here  you  have  Woman!  The  charming  crea- 
tures will  neither  strain  at  a  camel  nor  swallow  a  gnat. 
Not  publicly.  These  operations,  without  which  the 
world  they  have  such  a  large  share  in  could  not  go  on 
for  ten  minutes,  are  left  to  us — men.  And  then  we  are 
chided  for  being  coarse.  This  is  a  refined  objection 
but  does  not  seem  fair.  Another  little  girl — or  perhaps 
the  same  little  girl — wrote  to  him  in  Cordova  "I  hope 
Poste-Restante  is  a  nice  place,  and  that  you  are  very 
comfortable."  Woman  again!  I  have  in  my  time  told 
some  stories  which  are  (I  hate  false  modesty)  both  true 
and  lovely.  Yet  no  little  girl  ever  wrote  to  me  in  kindly 
terms.  And  why?  Simply  because  I  am  not  enough 
of  a  Vagabond.  The  dear  despots  of  the  fireside  have 
a  weakness  for  lawless  characters.  This  is  amiable, 
but  does  not  seem  rational. 

Being  Quixotic,  Mr.  Luffmann  is  no  Impressionist. 
He  is  far  too  earnest  in  his  heart,  and  not  half  suf- 
ficiently precise  in  his  style  to  be  that.  But  he  is  an 
excellent  narrator.  More  than  any  Vagabond  I  have 
ever  met,  he  knows  what  he  is  about.  There  is  not  one 
of  his  quiet  days  which  is  dull.  You  will  find  in  them 
a  love-story  not   made   up,    the   coup-de-foudre,    the 


64  NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

lightning-stroke  of  Spanish  love;  and  you  will  marvel 
how  a  spell  so  sudden  and  vehement  can  be  at  the  same 
time  so  tragically  delicate.  You  will  find  there  land- 
ladies devoured  with  jealousy,  astute  housekeepers, 
delightful  boys,  wise  peasants,  touchy  shopkeepers,  all 
the  Cosas  de  Espana — and,  in  addition,  the  pale  girl 
Rosario.  I  recommend  that  pathetic  and  silent  victim 
of  fate  to  your  benevolent  compassion.  You  will  find 
in  his  pages  the  humours  of  starving  workers  of  the  soil, 
the  vision  among  the  mountains  of  an  exulting  mad 
spirit  in  a  mighty  body,  and  many  other  visions  worthy 
of  attention.  And  they  are  exact  visions,  for  this 
idealist  is  no  visionary.  He  is  in  sympathy  with 
suffering  mankind,  and  has  a  grasp  on  real  human 
affairs.  I  mean  tlie  great  and  pitiful  affairs  concerned 
with  bread,  love,  and  the  obscure,  unexpressed  needs 
which  drive  great  crowds  to  prayer  in  the  holy  places  of 
the  earth. 

But  I  like  his  conception  of  what  a  "quiet"  life  is 
like!  His  quiet  days  require  no  fewer  than  forty -two 
of  the  forty-nine  provinces  of  Spain  to  take  their  ease 
in.  For  his  unquiet  days,  I  presume,  the  seven — or  is 
it  ninei^ — crystal  spheres  of  Alexandrian  cosmogony 
would  afford  but  a  wretchedly  straitened  space.  A 
most  unconventional  thing  is  his  notion  of  quietness. 
One  would  take  it  as  a  joke;  only  that,  perchance,  to  the 
author  of  "Quiet  Days  in  Spain"  all  days  may  seem 
quiet,  because,  a  courageous  convert,  he  is  now  at  peace 
with  himself. 

How  better  can  we  take  leave  of  this  interesting 
Vagabond  than  with  the  road  salutation  of  passing 
wayfarers:  "And  on  you  be  peace!  .  .  .  You 
have  chosen  your  ideal,  and  it  is  a  good  choice.  There's 
nothing  like  giving  up  one's  life  to  an  unselfish  passion. 
Let  the  rich  and  the  powerful  of  this  globe  preach  their 


A  HAPPY  Yv'ANDERER  65 

sound  gospel  of  palpable  progress.  The  part  of  the 
ideal  you  embrace  is  the  better  one,  if  only  in  its 
illusions.  No  great  passion  can  be  barren.  May  a 
world  of  gracious  and  poignant  images  attend  the  lofty 
solitude  of  your  renunciation!" 


THE  LIFE  BEYOND 
1910 

You  have  no  doubt  noticed  that  certain  books  pro- 
duce a  sort  of  physical  effect  on  one — mostly  an  audible 
effect.  I  am  not  alluding  here  to  Blue  books  or  to  books 
of  statistics.  The  effect  of  these  is  simply  exasperating 
and  no  more.  No !  the  books  I  have  in  mind  are  just 
the  common  books  of  commerce  you  and  I  read  when 
we  have  five  minutes  to  spare,  the  usual  hired  books 
published  by  ordinarj^  publishers,  printed  by  ordinary 
printers,  and  censored  (when  they  happen  to  be  novels) 
by  the  usual  circulating  libraries,  the  guardians  of  our 
firesides,  whose  names  are  household  words  within  the 
four  seas. 

To  see  the  fair  and  the  brave  of  this  free  country 
surrendering  themselves  with  unbounded  trust  to  the 
direction  of  the  circulating  libraries  is  very  touching. 
It  is  even,  in  a  sense,  a  beautiful  spectacle,  because,  as 
you  know,  humility  is  a  rare  and  fragrant  virtue;  and 
ivhat  can  be  more  humble  than  to  surrender  your  morals 
and  your  intellect  to  the  judgment  of  one  of  your 
tradesmen  .f*  I  suppose  that  there  are  some  very  per- 
fect people  who  allow  the  Army  and  Navy  stores  to 
censor  their  diet.  So  much  merit,  however,  I  imagine, 
is  not  frequently  met  with  here  below.  The  flesh, 
alas!  is  weak,  and — from  a  certain  point  of  view — so 
important! 

A  superficial  person  might  be  rendered  miserable  by 
the  simple  question:     What  would  become  of  us  if  the 

66 


THE  LIFE  BEYOND  67 

circulating  libraries  ceased  to  exist?  It  is  a  horrid  and 
almost  indelicate  supposition,  but  let  us  be  brave  and 
face  the  truth.  On  this  earth  of  ours  nothing  lasts. 
Tout  passe,  tout  casse,  tout  lasse.  Imagine  the  utter 
wreck  overtaking  the  morals  of  our  beautiful  country 
houses  should  the  circulating  libraries  suddenly  die! 
But  pray  do  not  shudder.     There  is  no  occasion. 

Their  spirit  shall  survive.  I  declare  this  from  inward 
conviction,  and  also  from  scientific  information  received 
lately.  For  observe :  the  circulating  libraries  are  human 
institutions.  I  beg  you  to  follow  me  closely.  They  are 
human  institutions,  and  bemg  human,  they  are  not 
animal,  and,  therefore,  they  are  spiritual.  Thus,  any 
man  with  enough  money  to  take  a  shop,  stock  his 
shelves,  and  pay  for  advertisements  shall  be  able  to 
evoke  the  pure  and  censorious  spectre  of  the  circulating 
libraries  whenever  his  own  commercial  spirit  moves 
him. 

For,  and  this  is  the  information  alluded  to  above^ 
Science,  having  in  its  infinite  wanderings  run  up  against 
various  wonders  and  mysteries,  is  apparently  willing 
now  to  allow  a  spiritual  quality  to  man  and,  I  conclude, 
to  all  his  works  as  well. 

I  do  not  know  exactly  what  this  "Science"  may  be; 
and  I  do  not  think  that  anybody  else  knows;  but  that  is 
the  information  stated  shortly.  It  is  contained  in  a 
book  reposing  under  my  thoughtful  eyes.^  I  know  it 
is  not  a  censored  book,  because  I  can  see  for  myself  that 
it  is  not  a  novel.  The  author,  on  his  side,  warns  me 
that  it  is  not  philosophy,  that  it  is  not  metaphysics, 
that  it  is  not  natural  science.  After  this  comprehensive 
warning,  the  definition  of  the  book  becomes,  you  will 
admit,  a  pretty  hard  nut  to  crack. 


1" Existence  After  Death  Implied  by  Science,"  by  Jasper  B.  Hunt,  M.A, 


68  NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

But  meantime  let  us  return  for  a  moment  to  my 
opening  remark  about  the  physical  eflPect  of  some 
common,  hired  books.  A  few  of  them  (not  necessarily 
books  of  verse)  are  melodious;  the  music  some  others 
make  for  you  as  you  read  has  the  disagreeable  emphasis 
of  a  barrel-organ;  the  tinkling-cymbals  book  (it  was 
not  written  by  a  humorist)  I  only  met  once.  But  there 
is  infinite  variety  in  the  noises  books  do  make.  I  have 
now  on  my  shelves  a  book  apparently  of  the  most 
valuable  kind  which,  before  I  have  read  half-a-dozen 
lines,  begins  to  make  a  noise  like  a  buzz-saw.  I  am 
inconsolable;  I  shall  never,  I  fear,  discover  what  it  is  all 
about,  for  the  buzzing  covers  the  words,  and  at  every 
try  I  am  absolutely  forced  to  give  it  up  ere  the  end  of  the 
page  is  reached. 

The  book,  however,  which  I  have  found  so  difficult  to 
define,  is  by  no  means  noisy.  As  a  mere  piece  of  writing 
it  may  be  described  as  being  breathless  itself  and  taking 
the  reader's  breath  away,  not  by  the  magnitude  of  its 
message  but  by  a  sort  of  anxious  volubility  in  the 
delivery.  The  constantly  elusive  argument  and  the 
illustrative  quotations  go  on  without  a  single  reflective 
pause.  For  this  reason  alone  the  reading  of  that  work 
is  a  fatiguing  process. 

The  author  himself  (I  use  his  own  words)  "suspects" 
that  what  he  has  written  "may  be  theology  after  all." 
It  may  be.  It  is  not  my  place  either  to  allay  or  to  con- 
firm the  author's  suspicion  of  his  own  work.  But  I  will 
state  its  main  thesis:  "That  science  regarded  in  the 
gross  dictates  the  spirituality  of  man  and  strongly  im- 
plies a  spiritual  destiny  for  individual  human  beings." 
This  means:  Existence  after  Death — that  is.  Immor- 
tality. 

To  find  out  its  value  you  must  go  to  the  book.  But 
I  will  observe  here  that  an  Immortality  liable  at  any 


THE  LIFE  BEYOND  69 

moment  to  betray  itself  fatuously  by  the  forcible 
incantations  of  Mr.  Stead  or  Professor  Crookes  is 
scarcely  worth  having.  Can  you  imagine  anything 
more  squalid  than  an  Immortality  at  the  beck  and  call 
of  Eusapia  Palladino?  That  woman  lives  on  the  top 
floor  of  a  Neapolitan  house,  and  gets  our  poor,  pitiful, 
august  dead,  flesh  of  our  flesh,  bone  of  our  bone,  spirit 
of  our  spirit,  who  have  loved,  suffered  and  died,  as  we 
must  love,  suffer,  and  die — she  gets  them  to  beat 
tambourines  in  a  corner  and  protrude  shadowy  limbs 
through  a  curtain.  This  is  particularly  horrible,  be- 
cause, if  one  had  to  put  one's  faith  in  these  things  one 
could  not  even  die  safely  from  disgust,  as  one  would 
long  to  do. 

And  to  believe  that  these  manifestations,  which  the 
author  evidently  takes  for  modern  miracles,  will  stay 
our  tottering  faith;  to  believe  that  the  new  psychology 
has,  only  the  other  day,  discovered  man  to  be  a  "spiri- 
tual mystery,"  is  really  carrying  humility  towards  that 
universal  provider,  Science,  too  far. 

We  moderns  have  complicated  our  old  perplexities  to 
the  point  of  absurdity;  our  perplexities  older  than  re- 
ligion itself.  It  is  not  for  nothing  that  for  so  many 
centuries  the  priest,  mounting  the  steps  of  the  altar, 
murmurs,  "Why  art  thou  sad,  my  soul,  and  why  dost 
thou  trouble  me.^^"  Since  the  day  of  Creation  two 
veiled  figures.  Doubt  and  Melancholy,  are  pacing  end- 
lessly in  the  sunshine  of  the  world,  ^^llat  humanity 
needs  is  not  the  promise  of  scientific  immortality,  but 
compassionate  pity  in  this  life  and  infinite  mercy  on  the 
Day  of  Judgment. 

And,  for  the  rest,  during  this  transient  hour  of  our 
pilgrimage,  we  may  well  be  content  to  repeat  the  In- 
vocation of  Sar  Peladan.     Sar  Peladan  was  an  occultist. 


70  NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

a  seer,  a  modern  magician.  He  believed  in  astrology, 
in  the  spirits  of  the  air,  in  elves;  he  was  marvellously 
and  deliciously  absurd.  Incidentally  he  wrote  some  in- 
comprehensible poems  and  a  few  pages  of  harmonious 
prose,  for,  you  must  loiow,  "a  magician  is  nothing  else 
but  a  great  harmonist."  Here  are  some  eight  lines  of 
the  magnificent  Invocation.  Let  me,  however,  warn 
you,  strictly  between  ourselves,  that  my  translation  is 
execrable.     I   am   sorry   to   say   I   am   no   magician. 

"O  Nature,  indulgent  Mother,  forgive!  Open  your 
arms  to  the  son,  prodigal  and  weary. 

*'I  have  attempted  to  tear  asunder  the  veil  you  have 
hung  to  conceal  from  us  the  pain  of  life,  and  I  have  been 
wounded  by  the  mystery  .  .  .  CEdipus,  half  way 
to  finding  the  word  of  the  enigma,  young  Faust,  regret- 
ting already  the  simple  life,  the  life  of  the  heart,  I  come 
back  to  you  repentant,  reconciled,  O  gentle  deceiver!" 


THE  ASCENDING  EFFORT 

1910 

Much  good  paper  has  been  lamentably  wasted  to 
prove  that  science  has  destroyed,  that  it  is  destroying, 
or,  some  day,  may  destroy  poetry.  Meantime,  un- 
blushing, unseen,  and  ofter  unheard,  the  guileless  poets 
have  gone  on  singing  in  a  sweet  strain.  How  they  dare 
do  the  impossible  and  virtually  forbidden  thing  is  a 
cause  for  wonder  but  not  for  legislation.  Not  yet.  We 
are  at  present  too  busy  reforming  the  silent  burglar  and 
planning  concerts  to  soothe  the  savage  breast  of  the 
yelling  hooligan.  As  somebody — perhaps  a  publisher — 
said  lately:     "Poetry  is  of  no  account  now-a-days." 

But  it  is  not  totally  neglected.  Those  persons  with 
gold-rimmed  spectacles  whose  usual  occupation  is  to 
spy  upon  the  obvious  have  remarked  audibly  (on  several 
occasions)  that  poetry  has  so  far  not  given  to  science 
any  acknowledgment  worthy  of  its  distinguished  posi- 
tion in  the  popular  mind.  Except  that  Tennyson 
looked  do^n  the  throat  of  a  foxglove,  that  Erasmus 
Darwin  wrote  "The  Loves  of  the  Plants"  and  a  scoffer 
"The  Loves  of  the  Triangles,"  poets  have  been  sup- 
posed to  be  indecorously  blind  to  the  progress  of 
science.  What  tribute,  for  instance,  has  poetry  paid 
to  electricity.^  All  I  can  remember  on  the  spur  of  the 
moment  is  Mr.  Arthur  Symons'  line  about  arc  lamps: 
*'Hung  with  the  globes  of  some  unnatural  fruit," 

Commerce  and  Manufacture  praise  on  every  hand 
in  their  not  mute  but  inarticulate  way  the  glories  of 

71 


72  NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

science.  Poetry  does  not  play  its  part.  Behold  John 
Keats,  skilful  with  the  surgeon's  knife;  but  when  he 
writes  poetry  his  inspiration  is  not  from  the  operating 
table.  Here  I  am  reminded,  though,  of  a  modem  in- 
stance to  the  contrary  in  prose,  Mr.  H.  G.  Wells,  who, 
as  far  as  I  know,  has  never  written  a  line  of  verse,  was 
inspired  a  few  years  ago  to  write  a  short  story,  "Under 
the  Kjiife. "  Out  of  a  clock-dial,  a  brass  rod,  and  a 
whiff  of  chloroform,  he  has  conjured  for  us  a  sensation 
of  space  and  eternity,  evoked  the  face  of  the  Unknow- 
able, and  an  awesome,  august  voice,  like  the  voice  of  the 
Judgment  Day;  a  great  voice,  perhaps  the  voice  of 
science  itself,  uttering  the  words:  "There  shall  be  no 
more  pain!"  I  advise  you  to  look  up  that  story,  so 
human  and  so  intimate,  because  Mr.  Wells,  the  writer  of 
prose  whose  amazing  inventiveness  we  all  know,  re- 
mains a  poet  even  in  his  most  perverse  moments  of 
scorn  for  things  as  they  are.  His  poetic  imagination  is 
sometimes  even  greater  than  his  inventiveness,  I  am  not 
afraid  to  say.  But,  indeed,  imaginative  faculty  would 
make  any  man  a  poet — were  he  bom  without  tongue 
for  speech  and  without  hands  to  seize  his  fancy  and 
fasten  her  down  to  a  wretched  piece  of  paper. 

The  book^  which  in  the  course  of  the  last  few  days  I 
have  opened  and  shut  several  times  is  not  imaginative. 
But,  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  not  a  dumb  book,  as  some 
are.  It  has  even  a  sort  of  sober  and  serious  eloquence, 
reminding  us  that  not  poetry  alone  is  at  fault  in  this 
matter.  Mr.  Bourne  begins  his  "Ascending  Effort" 
with  a  remark  by  Sir  Francis  Galton  upon  Eugenics 
that  "if  the  principles  he  was  advocating  were  to  be- 
come effective  they  must  be  introduced  into  the  na- 


*The  Ascending  Effort,"  by  George  Bourne. 


THE  ASCENDING  EFFORT  73 

tional  conscience,  like  a  new  religion."  "Introduced" 
suggests  compulsory  vaccination.  Mr.  Bourne,  who  is 
not  a  theologian,  wishes  to  league  together  not  science 
and  religion,  but  science  and  the  arts.  "The  intoxi- 
cating power  of  art,"  he  thinks,  is  the  very  thing  needed 
to  give  the  desired  effect  to  the  doctrines  of  science.  In 
uninspired  phrase  he  points  to  the  arts  playing  once  upon 
a  time  a  part  in  "popularizing  the  Christian  tenets." 
With  painstaking  fervour  as  great  as  the  fervour  of 
prophets,  but  not  so  persuasive,  he  foresees  the  arts 
some  day  popularizing  science.  Until  that  day  dawns, 
science  will  continue  to  be  lame  and  poetry  blind.  He 
himself  cannot  smooth  or  even  point  out  the  way, 
though  he  thinks  that  "a  really  prudent  people  would 
be  greedy  of  beauty,"  and  their  public  authorities 
*'as  careful  of  the  sense  of  comfort  as  of  sanitation." 

As  the  writer  of  those  admirable  rustic  note-books 
*'The  Bettesworth  Book"  and  "Memoirs  of  a  Surrey 
Labourer,"  the  author  has  a  claim  upon  our  attention. 
But  his  seriousness,  his  patience,  his  almost  touching 
sincerity,  can  only  command  the  respect  of  his  readers 
and  nothing  more.  He  is  obsessed  by  science,  haunted 
and  shadowed  by  it,  until  he  has  been  bemldered  into 
awe.  He  knows,  indeed,  that  art  owes  its  triumphs 
and  its  subtle  influence  to  the  fact  that  it  issues  straight 
from  our  organic  vitality,  and  is  a  movement  of  life-cells 
with  their  matchless  unintellectual  knowledge.  But 
the  fact  that  poetry  does  not  seem  obviously  in  love 
with  science  has  never  made  him  doubt  whether  it 
may  not  be  an  argument  against  his  haste  to  see 
the  marriage  ceremony  performed  amid  public  rejoic- 
ings. 

Many  a  man  has  heard  or  read  and  believes  that  the 
earth  goes  round  the  sun;  one  small  blob  of  mud  among 
several  others,  spinning  ridiculously  with  a  waggling 


74         NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

motion  like  a  top  about  to  fall.  This  is  the  Copemican 
system,  and  the  man  believes  in  the  system  without 
often  knowing  as  much  about  it  as  its  name.  But 
while  watching  a  sunset  he  sheds  his  belief;  he  sees  the 
sun  as  a  small  and  useful  object,  the  servant  of  his  needs 
and  the  witness  of  his  ascending  effort,  sinking  slowly 
behind  a  range  of  mountains,  and  then  he  holds  the 
system  of  Ptolemy.  He  holds  it  without  knowing  it. 
In  the  same  way  a  poet  hears,  reads,  and  believes  a 
thousand  undeniable  truths  which  have  not  yet  got  into 
his  blood,  nor  will  do  after  reading  Mr.  Bourne's  book; 
he  writes,  therefore,  as  if  neither  truths  nor  book  existed. 
Life  and  the  arts  follow  dark  courses,  and  will  not  turn 
aside  to  the  brilliant  arc-lights  of  science.  Some  day, 
without  a  doubt,^ — and  it  may  be  a  consolation  to  Mr. 
Bourne  to  know  it — fully  informed  critics  will  point 
out  that  Mr.  Davies's  poem  on  a  dark  woman  combing 
her  hair  must  have  been  written  after  the  invasion  of 
appendicitis,  and  that  Mr.  Yeats's  *'Had  I  the  heaven's 
embroidered  cloths"  came  before  radium  was  quite  un-t 
necessarily  dragged  out  of  its  respectable  obscurity 
in  pitchblende  to  upset  the  venerable  (and  compara- 
tively naive)  chemistry  of  our  young  days. 

There  are  times  when  the  tyranny  of  science  and  the 
cant  of  science  are  alarming,  but  there  are  other  times 
when  they  are  entertaining — and  this  is  one  of  them. 
"Many  a  man  prides  himself,"  says  Mr.  Bourne,  "on  his 
piety  or  his  views  of  art,  whose  whole  range  of  ideas, 
could  they  be  investigated,  would  be  found  ordinary, 
if  not  base,  because  they  have  been  adopted  in  com- 
pliance with  some  external  persuasion  or  to  serve  some 
timid  purpose  instead  of  proceeding  authoritatively 
from  the  living  selection  of  his  hereditary  taste."  This 
extract  is  a  fair  sample  of  the  book's  thought  and  of  its 
style.     But  Mr.  Bourne  seems  to  forget  that  "persua- 


THE  ASCENDING  EFFORT  75 

sion"  is  a  vain  thing.  The  appreciation  of  great  art 
comes  from  within. 

It  is  but  the  merest  justice  to  say  that  the  transparent 
honesty  of  Mr.  Bourne's  purpose  is  undeniable.  But 
the  whole  book  is  simply  an  earnest  expression  of  a  pious 
wish;  and,  like  the  generality  of  pious  wishes,  this  one 
seems  of  little  dynamic  value — besides  being  im- 
practicable. 

Yes,  indeed.  Art  has  served  Religion;  artists  have 
found  the  most  exalted  inspiration  in  Christianity;  but 
the  light  of  Transfiguration  which  has  illuminated  the 
profoundest  mysteries  of  our  sinful  souls  is  not  the 
light  of  the  generating  stations,  which  exposes  the 
depths  of  our  infatuation  where  our  mere  cleverness  is 
permitted  for  a  while  to  grope  for  the  unessential  among 
invincible  shadows. 


THE  CENSOR  OF  PLAYS 

An  Appreciation 
1907 

A  COUPLE  of  years  ago  I  was  moved  to  write  a  one-act 
play — ^and  I  lived  long  enough  to  accomplish  the  task. 
We  live  and  learn.  When  the  play  was  finished  I  was 
informed  that  it  had  to  be  licensed  for  performance. 
Thus  I  learned  of  the  existence  of  the  Censor  of  Plays. 
I  may  say  without  vanity  that  I  am  intelligent  enough 
to  have  been  astonished  by  that  piece  of  information: 
for  facts  must  stand  in  some  relation  to  time  and  space, 
and  I  was  aware  of  being  in  England — in  the  twentieth- 
century  England.  The  fact  did  not  fit  the  date  and 
the  place.  That  was  my  first  thought.  It  was,  in 
short,  an  improper  fact.  I  beg  you  to  believe  that  I 
am  writing  in  all  seriousness  and  am  weighing  my  words 
scrupulously. 

Therefore  I  don't  say  inappropriate.  I  say  im- 
proper— that  is:  something  to  be  ashamed  of.  And 
at  first  this  impression  was  confirmed  by  the  obscurity 
in  which  the  figure  embodying  this  after  all  consider- 
able fact  had  its  being.  The  Censor  of  Plays!  His 
name  was  not  in  the  mouths  of  all  men.  Far  from  it. 
He  seemed  stealthy  and  remote.  There  was  about 
that  figure  the  scent  of  the  Far  East,  like  the  peculiar 
atmosphere  of  a  Mandarin's  back  yard,  and  the 
mustiness  of  tlie  Middle  Ages,  that  epoch  when 
mankind  tried  to  stand  still  in  a  monstrous  illusion 

76 


THE  CENSOR  OF  PLAYS  77 

of  final  certitude  attained  in  morals,  intellect  and 
conscience. 

It  was  a  disagreeable  impression.  But  I  reflected 
that  probably  the  censorship  of  plays  was  an  inactive 
monstrosity;  not  exactly  a  survival,  since  it  seemed  ob- 
viously at  variance  with  the  genius  of  the  people,  but 
an  heirloom  of  past  ages,  a  bizarre  and  imported  curi- 
osity preserved  because  of  that  weakness  one  has  for 
one's  old  possessions  apart  from  any  intrinsic  value; 
one  more  object  of  exotic  virtu,  an  oriental  potichey 
a  magot  chinois  conceived  by  a  childish  and  extrava- 
gant imagination,  but  allowed  to  stand  in  stolid  impo- 
tence in  the  twilight  of  the  upper  shelf. 

Thus  I  quieted  my  uneasy  mind.  Its  uneasiness 
had  nothing  to  do  with  the  fate  of  my  one-act  play. 
The  play  was  duly  produced,  and  an  exceptionally 
intelligent  audience  stared  it  coldly  off  the  boards. 
It  ceased  to  exist.  It  was  a  fair  and  open  execution. 
But  having  survived  the  freezing  atmosphere  of  that 
auditorium  I  continued  to  exist,  labouring  imder  no 
sense  of  wrong.  I  was  not  pleased,  but  I  was  content. 
I  was  content  to  accept  the  verdict  of  a  free  and  inde- 
pendent public,  judging  after  its  conscience  the  work 
of  its  free,  independent  and  conscientious  servant — 
tlie  artist. 

Only  thus  can  the  dignity  of  artistic  servitude  be  pre- 
served— not  to  speak  of  the  bare  existence  of  the  artist 
and  the  self-respect  of  the  man.  I  shall  say  nothing 
of  the  self-respect  of  the  public.  To  the  self-respect  of 
the  public  the  present  appeal  against  the  censorship  is 
being  made  and  I  join  in  it  with  all  my  heart. 

For  I  have  lived  long  enough  to  learn  that  the 
monstrous  and  outlandish  figure,  the  magot  chinois 
whom  I  believed  to  be  but  a  memorial  of  our  fore- 
fathers'   mental    aberration,    that    grotesque    potiche 


78         NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

works!  The  absurd  and  hollow  creature  of  clay  seems 
to  be  alive  with  a  sort  of  (surely)  unconscious  life  worthy 
of  its  traditions.  It  heaves  its  stomach,  it  rolls  its 
eyes,  it  brandishes  a  monstrous  arm:  and  with  the 
censorship,  like  a  Bravo  of  old  Venice  with  a  more  car- 
nal weapon,  stabs  its  victim  from  behind  in  the  twilight 
of  its  upper  shelf.  Less  picturesque  than  the  Venetian 
in  cloak  and  mask,  less  estimable,  too,  in  this,  that  the 
assassin  plied  his  moral  trade  at  his  own.  risk  deriving 
no  countenance  from  the  powers  of  the  Republic,  it 
stands  more  malevolent,  inasmuch  that  the  Bravo 
striking  in  the  dusk  killed  but  the  body,  whereas  the 
grotesque  thing  nodding  its  mandarin  head  may  in  its 
absurd  unconsciousness  strike  down  at  any  time  the 
spirit  of  an  honest,  of  an  artistic,  perhaps  of  a  sublime 
creation. 

This  Chinese  monstrosity,  disguised  in  the  trousers 
of  the  Western  Barbarian  and  provided  by  the  State 
with  the  immortal  Mr.  Stiggins's  plug  hat  and  umbrella, 
is  with  us.  It  is  an  office.  An  office  of  trust.  And 
from  time  to  time  there  is  found  an  official  to  fill  it. 
He  is  a  public  man.  The  least  prominent  of  public 
men,  the  most  unobtrusive,  the  most  obscure  if  not 
the  most  modest. 

But  however  obscure,  a  public  man  may  be  told  the 
truth  if  only  once  in  his  life.  His  office  flourishes  in 
the  shade;  not  in  the  rustic  shade  beloved  of  the  violet 
but  in  the  muddled  twilight  of  mind  where  tj^anny 
of  every  sort  flourishes.  Its  holder  need  not  have 
either  brain  or  heart,  no  sight,  no  taste,  no  imagination, 
not  even  bowels  of  compassion.  He  needs  not  these 
things.  He  has  power.  He  can  kill  thought,  and  inci- 
dentally truth,  and  incidentally  beauty,  providing 
they  seek  to  live  in  a  dramatic  form.  He  can  do  it, 
without  seeing,  without  understanding,  without  feeling 


THE  CENSOR  OF  PLAYS  79 

anything;  out  of  mere  stupid  suspicion,  as  an  irrespon- 
sible Roman  Caesar  could  kill  a  senator.  He  can  do 
that  and  there  is  no  one  to  say  him  nay.  He  may 
call  his  cook  (Moliere  used  to  do  that)  from  below  and 
give  her  five  acts  to  judge  every  morning  as  a  matter 
of  constant  practice  and  still  remain  the  unquestioned 
destroyer  of  men's  honest  work.  He  may  have  a 
glass  too  much.  This  accident  has  happened  to  per- 
sons of  unimpeachable  morality — to  gentlemen.  He 
may  suffer  from  spells  of  imbecility  like  Clodius.  He 
may  .  .  .  what  might  he  not  do!  I  tell  you  he 
is  the  Caesar  of  the  dramatic  world.  There  has  been 
since  the  Roman  Principate  nothing  in  the  way  of  irre- 
sponsible power  to  compare  with  the  office  of  the 
Censor  of  Plays. 

Looked  at  in  this  way  it  has  some  grandeur,  some- 
thing colossal  in  the  odious  and  the  absurd.  This 
figure  in  whose  power  it  is  to  suppress  an  intellectual 
conception — to  kill  thought  (a  dream  for  a  mad  brain, 
my  masters !) — seems  designed  in  a  spirit  of  bitter  com- 
edy to  bring  out  the  greatness  of  a  Philistine's  conceit 
and  his  moral  cowardice. 

But  this  is  England  in  the  twentieth  century,  and 
one  wonders  that  there  can  be  found  a  man  courageous 
'enough  to  occupy  the  post.  It  is  a  matter  for  medita- 
tion. Having  given  it  a  few  minutes  I  come  to  the 
conclusion  in  the  serenity  of  my  heart  and  the  peace 
of  my  conscience  that  he  must  be  either  an  extreme 
megalomaniac  or  an  utterly  unconscious  being. 

He  must  be  unconscious.  It  is  one  of  the  quali- 
fications for  his  magistracy.  Other  qualifications 
are  equally  easy.  He  must  have  done  nothing,  ex- 
pressed nothing,  imagined  nothing.  He  must  be 
obscure,  insignificant  and  mediocre — in  thought,  act, 
speech  and  sympathy.     He  must  know  nothing  of  art. 


80  NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

of  life — and  of  himself.  For  if  he  did  he  would  not 
dare  to  be  what  he  is.  Like  that  much  questioned  and 
mysterious  bird,  the  phoenix,  he  sits  amongst  the  cold 
ashes  of  his  predecessor  upon  the  altar  of  morality,  alone 
of  his  kind  in  the  sight  of  wondering  generations. 

And  I  will  end  with  a  quotation  reproducing  not 
perhaps  the  exact  words  but  the  true  spirit  of  a  lofty 
conscience. 

"Often  when  sitting  down  to  write  the  notice  of  a 
play,  especially  when  I  felt  it  antagonistic  to  my  can- 
ons of  art,  to  my  tastes  or  my  convictions,  I  hesitated 
in  the  fear  lest  my  conscientious  blame  might  check  the 
development  of  a  great  talent,  my  sincere  judgment 
condemn  a  worthy  mind.  With  the  pen  poised  in  my 
hand  I  hesitated,  whispering  to  myself  'What  if  I  were 
perchance  doing  my  part  in  killing  a  masterpiece."* 

Such  were  the  lofty  scruples  of  M.  Jules  Lemaitre 
■ — dramatist  and  dramatic  critic,  a  great  citizen  and 
a  high  magistrate  in  the  Republic  of  Letters;  a  Censor 
of  Plays  exercising  his  august  office  openly  in  the  light 
of  day,  with  the  authority  of  a  European  reputation. 
But  then  M.  Jules  Lemaitre  is  a  man  possessed  of  wis- 
dom, of  great  fame,  of  a  fine  conscience — not  an  obscure 
hollow  Chinese  monstrosity  ornamented  with  Mr. 
Stiggins's  plug  hat  and  cotton  umbrella  by  its  anxious 
grandmother — the  State. 

Franldy,  is  it  not  time  to  knock  the  improper  object 
oflF  its  shelf.'*  It  has  stood  too  long  there.  Hatched 
in  Pekin  (I  should  say)  by  some  Board  of  Respectable 
Rites,  the  little  caravan  monster  has  come  to  us  by 
way  of  Moscow — I  suppose.  It  is  outlandish.  It  is 
not  venerable.  It  does  not  belong  here.  Is  it  not  time 
to  knock  it  off  its  dark  shelf  with  some  implement  appro- 
priate to  its  worth  and  status?  With  an  old  broom 
handle  for  instance. 


PART  n 
LIFE 


AUTOCRACY  AND  WAR 

1905 

From  the  firing  of  the  first  shot  on  the  banks  of  the 
Sha-ho,  the  fate  of  the  great  battle  of  the  Russo- 
Japanese  war  hung  in  the  balance  for  more  than  a  fort- 
night. The  famous  three-day  battles,  for  which  history 
has  reserved  the  recognition  of  special  pages,  sink  into 
insignificance  before  the  struggles  in  Manchuria  en- 
gaging half  a  million  men  on  fronts  of  sixty  miles, 
struggles  lasting  for  weeks,  flaming  up  fiercely  and  dy- 
ing away  from  sheer  exhaustion,  to  flame  up  agaia  ia 
desperate  persistence,  and  end — as  we  have  seen  them 
end  more  than  once — not  from  the  victor  obtaining  a 
crushing  advantage,  but  through  the  mortal  weariness 
of  the  combatants. 

We  have  seen  these  things,  though  we  have  seen  them 
only  in  the  cold,  silent,  colourless  print  of  books  and 
newspapers.  In  stigmatising  the  printed  word  as 
cold,  silent  and  colourless,  I  have  no  intention  of 
putting  a  slight  upon  the  fidelity  and  the  talents  of  men 
who  have  provided  us  with  words  to  read  about  the 
battles  in  Manchuria.  I  only  wished  to  suggest  that  in 
the  nature  of  things,  the  war  in  the  Far  East  has 
been  made  known  to  us,  so  far,  in  a  grey  reflection 
of  its  terrible  and  monotonous  phases  of  pain,  death, 
sickness;  a  reflection  seen  in  the  perspective  of  thou- 
sands of  miles,  in  the  dim  atmosphere  of  oflScial  reti- 
cence, through  the  veil  of  inadequate  words.  Inade- 
quate, I  say,  because  what  had  to  be  reproduced  is 

83  ' 


84  NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

beyond  the  common  experience  of  war,  and  our  imagi- 
nation, luckily  for  our  peace  of  mind,  has  remained  a 
slumbering  faculty,  notwithstanding  the  din  of  humani- 
tarian talk  and  the  real  progress  of  humanitarian  ideas. 
Direct  vision  of  the  fact,  or  the  stimulus  of  a  great  art, 
can  alone  make  it  turn  and  open  its  eyes  heavy  with 
blessed  sleep;  and  even  there,  as  against  the  testimony 
of  the  senses  and  the  stirring  up  of  emotion,  that  saving 
callousness  which  reconciles  us  to  the  conditions  of  our 
existence,  will  assert  itself  under  the  guise  of  assent  to 
fatal  necessity,  or  in  the  enthusiasm  of  a  purely  esthetic 
admiration  of  the  rendering.  Li  this  age  of  knowledge 
our  sympathetic  imagination,  to  which  alone  we  can 
look  for  the  ultimate  triumph  of  concord  and  justice, 
remains  strangely  impervious  to  information,  however 
correctly  and  even  picturesquely  conveyed.  As  to  the 
vaunted  eloquence  of  a  serried  array  of  figures,  it  has 
all  the  futility  of  precision  without  force.  It  is  the 
exploded  superstition  of  enthusiastic  statisticians.  An 
overworked  horse  falling  in  front  of  our  windows,  a  man 
writhing  under  a  cart-wheel  in  the  street,  awaken  more 
genuine  emotion,  more  horror,  pity,  and  indignation 
than  the  stream  of  reports,  appalling  in  their  monotony, 
of  tens  of  thousands  of  decaying  bodies  tainting  the  air 
of  the  Manchurian  plains,  of  other  tens  of  thousands  of 
maimed  bodies  groaning  in  ditches,  crawling  on  the 
frozen  ground,  filling  the  field  hospitals;  of  the  hun- 
dreds of  thousands  of  survivors  no  less  pathetic  and 
even  more  tragic  in  being  left  alive  by  fate  to  the 
wretched  exhaustion  of  their  pitiful  toil. 

An  early  Victorian,  or  perhaps  a  pre-Victorian,  senti- 
mentalist, looking  out  of  an  upstairs  window,  I  believe, 
at  a  street — perhaps  Fleet  Street  itself — full  of  people, 
is  reported,  by  an  admiring  friend,  to  have  wept  for  joy 
at  seeing  so  much  life.    These  arcadian  tears,  this  facile 


AUTOCRACY  AND  WAR  85 

emotion  worthy  of  the  golden  age,  comes  to  us  from  the 
past,  with  solemn  approval,  after  the  close  of  the 
Napoleonic  wars  and  before  the  series  of  sanguinary 
surprises  held  in  reserve  by  the  nineteenth  century  for 
our  hopeful  grandfathers.  We  may  well  envy  them 
their  optimism  of  which  this  anecdote  of  an  amiable 
wit  and  sentimentalist  presents  an  extreme  instance, 
but  still,  a  true  instance,  and  worthy  of  regard  in  the 
spontaneous  testimony  to  that  trust  in  the  life  of 
the  earth,  triumphant  at  last  in  the  felicity  of  her 
children.  Moreover,  the  psychology  of  individuals, 
even  in  the  most  extreme  instances,  reflects  the  general 
effect  of  the  fears  and  hopes  of  its  time.  Wept  for  joy ! 
I  should  think  that  now,  after  eighty  years,  the  emotion 
would  be  of  a  sterner  sort.  One  could  not  imagine 
anybody  shedding  tears  of  joy  at  the  sight  of  much  life 
in  a  street,  unless,  perhaps,  he  were  an  enthusiastic 
oflicer  of  a  general  staff  or  a  popular  politician,  with  a 
career  yet  to  make.  And  hardly  even  that.  In  the 
case  of  the  first  tears  would  be  unprofessional,  and  a 
stern  repression  of  all  signs  of  joy  at  the  provision  of  so 
much  food  for  powder  more  in  accord  with  the  rules 
of  prudence;  the  joy  of  the  second  would  be  checked 
before  it  found  issue  in  weeping  by  anxious  doubts  as 
to  the  soundness  of  these  electors'  views  upon  the 
question  of  the  hour,  and  the  fear  of  missing  the  con- 
sensus of  their  votes. 

No!  It  seems  that  such  a  tender  joy  would  be  mis- 
placed now  as  much  as  ever  during  the  last  hundred 
years,  to  go  no  further  back.  The  end  of  the  eighteenth 
century  was,  too,  a  time  of  optimism  and  of  dismal 
mediocrity  in  which  the  French  Revolution  exploded 
like  a  bomb-shell.  In  its  lurid  blaze  the  insufficiency  of 
Europe,  the  inferiority  of  minds,  of  military  and  ad- 
ministrative systems,  stood  exposed  with  pitiless  vivid- 


86         NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

ness.  And  there  is  but  little  courage  in  saying  at  this 
time  of  the  day  that  the  glorified  French  Revolution 
itself,  except  for  its  destructive  force,  was  in  essentials 
a  mediocre  phenomenon.  The  parentage  of  that  great 
social  and  political  upheaval  was  intellectual,  the  idea 
was  elevated ;  but  it  is  the  bitter  fate  of  any  idea  to  lose 
its  royal  form  and  power,  to  lose  its  "virtue"  the  mo- 
ment it  descends  from  its  solitary  throne  to  work  its  will 
among  the  people.  It  is  a  king  whose  destiny  is  never 
to  know  the  obedience  of  his  subjects  except  at  the 
cost  of  degradation.  The  degradation  of  the  ideas  of 
freedom  and  justice  at  the  root  of  the  French  Revolu- 
tion is  made  manifest  in  the  person  of  its  heir;  a  person- 
ality without  law  or  faith,  whom  it  has  been  the  fashion 
to  represent  as  an  eagle,  but  who  was,  in  truth,  more 
like  a  sort  of  vulture  preying  upon  the  body  of  a  Europe 
which  did,  indeed,  for  some  dozen  of  years,  very  much 
resemble  a  corpse.  The  subtle  and  manifold  influence 
for  evil  of  the  Napoleonic  episode  as  a  school  of  violence, 
as  a  sower  of  national  hatreds,  as  the  direct  provocator 
of  obscurantism  and  reaction,  of  political  tyranny  and 
injustice,  cannot  well  be  exaggerated. 

The  nineteenth  century  began  with  wars  which  were 
the  issue  of  a  corrupted  revolution.  It  may  be  said 
that  the  twentieth  begins  with  a  war  which  is  like  the 
explosive  ferment  of  a  moral  grave,  whence  may  yet 
emerge  a  new  political  organism  to  take  the  place  of  a 
gigantic  and  dreaded  phantom.  For  a  hundred  years 
the  ghost  of  Russian  might,  overshadowing  with  its 
fantastic  bulk  the  councils  of  Central  and  Western 
Europe,  sat  upon  the  gravestone  of  autocracy,  cutting 
off  from  air,  from  light,  from  all  knowledge  of  them- 
selves and  of  the  world,  the  buried  millions  of  Russian 
people.  Not  the  most  determined  cockney  senti- 
mentalist could  have  had  the  heart  to  weep  for  joy  at 


AUTOCRACY  AND  WAR  87 

the  thought  of  its  teeming  numbers!  And  yet  they 
were  living,  they  are  aHve  yet,  since,  through  the  mist 
of  print,  we  have  seen  their  blood  freezing  crimson  upon 
the  snow  of  the  squares  and  streets  of  St.  Petersburg; 
since  their  generations  bom  in  the  grave  are  yet  alive 
enough  to  fill  the  ditches  and  cover  the  fields  of  Man- 
churia with  their  torn  limbs ;  to  send  up  from  the  frozen 
ground  of  battlefields  a  chorus  of  groans  calling  for 
vengeance  from  Heaven;  to  kill  and  retreat,  or  kill  and 
advance,  without  intermission  or  rest  for  twenty  hours, 
for  fifty  hours,  for  whole  weeks  of  fatigue,  hunger,  cold, 
and  murder — till  their  ghastly  labour,  worthy  of  a 
place  amongst  the  punishments  of  Dante's  Inferno, 
passing  through  the  stages  of  courage,  of  fury,  of  hope- 
lessness, sinks  into  the  night  of  crazy  despair. 

It  seems  that  in  both  armies  many  men  are  driven 
beyond  the  bounds  of  sanity  by  the  stress  of  moral  and 
physical  misery.  Great  numbers  of  soldiers  and  regi- 
mental officers  go  mad  as  if  by  way  of  protest  against 
the  peculiar  sanity  of  a  state  of  war:  mostly  among 
the  Russians,  of  course.  The  Japanese  have  in  their 
favour  the  tonic  effect  of  success ;  and  the  innate  gentle- 
ness of  their  character  stands  them  in  good  stead.  But 
the  Japanese  grand  army  has  yet  another  advantage  in 
this  nerve-destroying  contest,  which  for  endless,  ardu- 
ous toil  of  killing  surpasses  all  the  wars  of  history.  It 
has  a  base  for  its  operations;  a  base  of  a  nature  beyond 
the  concern  of  the  many  books  written  upon  the  so- 
called  art  of  war,  which,  considered  by  itself,  purely  as 
an  exercise  of  human  ingenuity,  is  at  best  only  a  thing 
of  well-worn,  simple  artifices.  The  Japanese  army 
has  for  its  base  a  reasoned  conviction;  it  has  behind  it 
the  profound  belief  in  the  right  of  a  logical  necessity  to 
be  appeased  at  the  cost  of  so  much  blood  and  treasure. 
And  in  that  belief,  whether  well  or  ill  founded,  that 


88         NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

army  stands  on  the  high  ground  of  conscious  assent, 
shouldering  deUberately  the  burden  of  a  long-tried 
faithfulness.  The  other  people  (since  each  people  is  an 
army  nowadays),  torn  out  from  a  miserable  quietude 
resembling  death  itself,  hurled  across  space,  amazed, 
without  starting-point  of  its  own,  or  knowledge  of  the 
aim,  can  feel  nothing  but  a  horror-stricken  conscious- 
ness of  having  mysteriously  become  the  plaything  of 
a  black  and  merciless  fate. 

The  profound,  the  instructive  nature  of  this  war  is 
resumed  by  the  memorable  difference  in  the  spiritual 
state  of  the  two  armies;  the  one  forlorn  and  dazed  on 
being  driven  out  from  an  abyss  of  mental  darkness  into 
the  red  light  of  a  conflagration,  the  other  with  a  full 
knowledge  of  its  past  and  its  future,  "finding  itself" 
as  it  were  at  every  step  of  the  trying  war  before  the  eyes 
of  an  astonished  world.  The  greatness  of  the  lesson 
has  been  dwarfed  for  most  of  us  by  an  often  half- 
conscious  prejudice  of  race-difference.  The  West 
having  managed  to  lodge  its  hasty  foot  on  the  neck  of 
the  East  is  prone  to  forget  that  it  is  from  the  East  that 
the  wonders  of  patience  and  wisdom  have  come  to  a 
world  of  men  who  set  the  value  of  life  in  the  power  to 
act  rather  than  in  the  faculty  of  meditation.  It  has 
been  dwarfed  by  this,  and  it  has  been  obscured  by  a 
cloud  of  considerations  with  whose  shaping  wisdom  and 
meditation  had  little  or  nothing  to  do;  by  the  weary 
platitudes  on  the  military  situation  which  (apart  from 
geographical  conditions)  is  the  same  everlasting  situ- 
ation that  has  prevailed  since  the  times  of  Hannibal 
and  Scipio,  and  further  back  yet,  since  the  beginning  of 
historical  record — since  prehistoric  times,  for  that 
matter;  by  the  conventional  expressions  of  horror  at 
the  tale  of  maiming  and  killing;  by  the  rumours  of 
peace  with  guesses  more  or  less  plausible  as  to  its 


AUTOCRACY  AND  WAR  89 

conditions.  All  this  is  made  legitimate  by  the  con- 
secrated custom  of  writers  in  such  time  as  this — the 
time  of  a  great  war.  More  legitimate  in  view  of  the 
situation  created  in  Europe  are  the  speculations  as  to 
the  course  of  events  after  the  war.  More  legitimate, 
but  hardly  more  wise  than  the  irresponsible  talk  of 
strategy  that  never  changes,  and  of  terms  of  peace  that 
do  not  matter. 

And  above  it  all — unaccountably  persistent — the 
decrepit,  old,  hundred  years  old,  spectre  of  Russia's 
might  still  faces  Europe  from  across  the  teeming  graves 
of  Russian  people.  This  dreaded  and  strange  appari- 
tion, bristling  with  bayonets,  armed  witli  chains,  hung 
over  with  holy  images;  that  something  not  of  this  world, 
partaking  of  a  ravenous  ghoul,  of  a  blind  Djinn  grown 
up  from  a  cloud,  and  of  the  Old  Man  of  the  Sea,  still 
faces  us  with  its  old  stupidity,  with  its  strange  mystical 
arrogance,  stamping  its  shadowy  feet  upon  the  grave- 
stone of  autocracy,  already  cracked  beyond  repair  by 
the  torpedoes  of  Togo  and  the  guns  of  Oyama,  already 
heaving  in  the  blood-soaked  ground  with  the  first  stir- 
rings of  a  resurrection. 

Never  before  had  the  Western  world  the  opportunity 
to  look  so  deep  into  the  black  abyss  which  separates  a 
soulless  autocracy  posing  as,  and  even  believing  itself 
to  be,  the  arbiter  of  Europe,  from  the  benighted,  starved 
souls  of  its  people.  This  is  the  real  object-lesson  of  this 
war,  its  unforgettable  information.  And  this  war's 
true  mission,  disengaged  from  the  economic  origins 
of  that  contest,  from  doors  open  or  shut,  from  the  fields 
of  Korea  for  Russian  wheat  or  Japanese  rice,  from  the 
ownership  of  ice-free  ports  and  the  command  of  the 
waters  of  the  East — its  true  mission  was  to  lay  a  ghost. 
It  has  accomplished  it.  "Whether  Kuropatkin  was  in- 
capable or  unlucky,  whether  or  not  Russia  issuing  next 


90         NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

year,  or  the  year  after  next,  from  behind  a  rampart  of 
piled-up  corpses  will  win  or  lose  a  fresh  campaign,  are 
minor  considerations.  The  task  of  Japan  is  done,  the 
mission  accomplished;  the  ghost  of  Russia's  might  is 
laid.  Only  Europe,  accustomed  so  long  to  the  presence 
of  that  portent,  seems  unable  to  comprehend  that,  as  in 
the  fables  of  our  childhood,  the  twelve  strokes  of  the 
hour  have  rung,  the  cock  has  crowed,  the  apparition 
has  vanished — never  to  haunt  again  this  world  which 
has  been  used  to  gaze  at  it  with  vague  dread  and  many 
misgivings. 

It  was  a  fascination.  And  the  hallucination  still 
lasts  as  inexplicable  in  its  persistence  as  in  its  duration. 
It  seems  so  unaccountable,  that  the  doubt  arises  as  to 
the  sincerity  of  all  that  talk  as  to  what  Russia  will  or 
will  not  do,  whether  it  will  raise  or  not  another  army, 
whether  it  will  bury  the  Japanese  in  Manchuria  under 
seventy  millions  of  sacrificed  peasants'  caps  (as  her 
Press  boasted  a  little  more  than  a  year  ago)  or  give  up 
to  Japan  that  jewel  of  her  crown,  Saghalien,  together 
with  some  other  things;  whether,  perchance,  as  an 
interesting  alternative,  it  will  make  peace  on  the  Amur 
in  order  to  make  war  beyond  the  Oxus. 

All  these  speculations  (with  many  others)  have  ap- 
peared gravely  in  print;  and  if  they  have  been  gravely 
considered  by  only  one  reader  out  of  each  hundred, 
there  must  be  something  subtly  noxious  to  the  human 
brain  in  the  composition  of  newspaper  ink;  or  else  it  is 
that  the  large  page,  the  columns  of  words,  the  leaded 
headings,  exalt  the  mind  into  a  state  of  feverish  credu- 
lity. The  printed  page  of  the  Press  makes  a  sort  of 
still  uproar,  taking  from  men  both  the  power  to  reflect 
and  the  faculty  of  genuine  feeling;  leaving  them  only 
the  artificially  created  need  of  having  something  excit- 
ing to  talk  about. 


AUTOCRACY  AND  WAR  91 

The  truth  is  that  the  Russia  of  our  fathers,  of  our 
childhood,  of  our  middle-age;  the  testamentary  Russia 
of  Peter  the  Great — who  imagmed  that  all  the  nations 
were  delivered  into  the  hand  of  Tsardom — can  do  noth- 
ing. It  can  do  nothing  because  it  does  not  exist.  It 
has  vanished  for  ever  at  last,  and  as  yet  there  is  no  new 
Russia  to  take  the  place  of  that  ill-omened  creation, 
which,  being  a  fantasy  of  a  madman's  brain,  could  in 
reality  be  nothmg  else  than  a  figure  out  of  a  nightmare 
seated  upon  a  monument  of  fear  and  oppression. 

The  true  greatness  of  a  State  does  not  spring  from 
such  a  contemptible  source.  It  is  a  matter  of  logical 
growth,  of  faith  and  courage.  Its  inspiration  springs 
from  the  constructive  instinct  of  the  people,  governed 
by  the  strong  hand  of  a  collective  conscience  and  voiced 
in  the  wisdom  and  counsel  of  men  who  seldom  reap  the 
reward  of  gratitude.  Many  States  have  been  powerful, 
but,  perhaps,  none  have  been  truly  great — as  yet. 
That  the  position  of  a  State  in  reference  to  the  moral 
methods  of  its  development  can  be  seen  only  histori- 
cally, is  true.  Perhaps  mankind  has  not  lived  long 
enough  for  a  comprehensive  view  of  any  particular  case. 
Perhaps  no  one  will  ever  Hve  long  enough;  and  perhaps 
this  earth  shared  out  amongst  our  clashing  ambitions 
by  the  anxious  arrangements  of  statesmen  will  come 
to  an  end  before  we  attain  the  felicity  of  greeting  with 
unanimous  applause  the  perfect  fruition  of  a  great 
State.  It  is  even  possible  that  we  are  destined  for 
another  sort  of  bliss  altogether:  that  sort  which  con- 
sists in  being  perpetually  duped  by  false  appearances. 
But  whatever  political  illusion  the  future  may  hold 
out  to  our  fear  or  our  admiration,  there  will  be  none,  it 
is  safe  to  say,  which  in  the  magnitude  of  anti-humani- 
tarian effect  will  equal  that  phantom  now  driven  out  of 
the  world  by  the  thunder  of  thousands  of  guns;  none 


92  NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

that  in  its  retreat  will  cling  with  an  equally  shameless 
sincerity  to  more  unworthy  supports,  to  the  moral  cor- 
ruption and  mental  darkness  of  slavery,  to  the  mere 
brute  force  of  numbers. 

This  very  ignominy  of  infatuation  should  make  clear 
to  men's  feelings  and  reason  that  the  downfall  of 
Russia's  might  is  unavoidable.  Spectral  it  lived  and 
spectral  it  disappears  without  leaving  a  memory  of  a 
single  generous  deed,  of  a  single  service  rendered — even 
involuntarily — to  the  pohty  of  nations.  Other  des- 
potisms there  have  been,  but  none  whose  origin  was 
so  grimly  fantastic  in  its  baseness,  and  the  beginning 
of  whose  end  was  so  gruesomely  ignoble.  What  is 
amazing  is  the  myth  of  its  irresistible  strength  which 
is  dying  so  hard. 


Considered  historically,  Russia's  influence  in  Europe 
seems  the  most  baseless  thing  in  the  world;  a  sort  of 
convention  invented  by  diplomatists  for  some  dark  pur- 
pose of  their  own,  one  would  suspect,  if  the  lack  of  grasp 
upon  the  reahties  of  any  given  situation  were  not  the 
main  characteristic  of  the  management  of  international 
relations.  A  glance  back  at  the  last  hundred  years 
shows  the  invariable,  one  may  say  the  logical,  power- 
lessness  of  Russia.  As  a  mihtary  power  it  has  never 
achieved  by  itself  a  single  gTeat  thing.  It  has  been 
indeed  able  to  repel  an  ill-considered  invasion,  but  only 
by  having  recourse  to  the  extreme  methods  of  despera- 
tion. In  its  attacks  upon  its  specially  selected  victim 
this  giant  always  struck  as  if  with  a  withered  right  hand* 
All  the  campaigns  against  Turkey  prove  this,  from 
Potemkin's  time  to  the  last  Eastern  war  in  1878,  entered 
upon  with  every  advantage  of  a  well-nursed  prestige 
and  a  carefully  fostered  fanaticism.     Even  the  half- 


AUTOCRACY  AND  WAR  93 

armed  were  always  too  mucli  for  the  might  of  Russia, 
or,  rather,  of  the  Tsardom.  It  was  victorious  only 
against  the  practically  disarmed,  as,  in  regard  to  its 
ideal  of  territorial  expansion,  a  glance  at  a  map  will 
prove  sufficiently,  ils  an  ally,  Russia  has  been  always 
unprofitable,  taking  her  share  in  the  defeats  rather  than 
in  the  victories  of  her  friends,  but  always  pushing  her 
own  claims  with  the  arrogance  of  an  arbiter  of  military 
success.  She  has  been  unable  to  help  to  any  purpose  a 
single  principle  to  hold  its  own,  not  even  the  principle  of 
authority  and  legitimism  which  Nicholas  the  First  had 
declared  so  haughtily  to  rest  under  his  special  protec- 
tion; just  as  Nicholas  the  Second  has  tried  to  make  the 
maintenance  of  peace  on  earth  his  own  exclusive  affair. 
And  the  first  Nicholas  was  a  good  Russian;  he  held  the> 
belief  in  the  sacredness  of  his  realm  with  such  an  inten- 
sity of  faith  that  he  could  not  survive  the  first  shock  of 
doubt.  Rightly  envisaged,  the  Crimean  war  was  the 
end  of  what  remained  of  absolutism  and  legitimism  in 
Europe.  It  threw  the  way  open  for  the  liberation 
of  Italy.  The  war  in  Manchuria  makes  an  end  of 
absolutism  in  Russia,  whoever  has  got  to  perish 
from  the  shock  behind  a  rampart  of  dead  ukases,  mani- 
festos, and  rescripts.  In  the  space  of  fifty  years  the 
self-appointed  Apostle  of  Absolutism  and  the  self- 
appointed  Apostle  of  Peace,  the  Augustus  and  the 
Augustulus  of  the  regime  that  was  wont  to  speak 
contemptuously  to  European  Foreign  Offices  in  the 
beautiful  French  phrases  of  Prince  Gorchakov,  have 
fallen  victims,  each  after  his  kind,  to  their  shadowy  and 
dreadful  familiar,  to  the  phantom,  part  ghoul,  part 
Djinn,  part  Old  Man  of  the  Sea,  with  beak  and  claws 
and  a  double  head,  looking  greedily  both  east  and  west 
on  the  confines  of  two  continents. 

That  nobody  through  all  that  time  penetrated  the 


94  NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

true  nature  of  the  monster  it  is  impossible  to  believe. 
But  of  the  many  who  must  have  seen,  all  were  either  too 
modest,  too  cautious,  perhaps  too  discreet,  to  speak;  or 
else  were  too  insignificant  to  be  heard  or  believed.  Yet 
not  all. 

In  the  very  early  'sixties.  Prince  Bismarck,  then  about 
to  leave  his  post  of  Prussian  Minister  in  St.  Petersburg, 
called — so  the  story  goes — upon  another  distinguished 
diplomatist.  After  some  talk  upon  the  general  situ- 
ation, the  future  Chancellor  of  the  German  Empire 
remarked  that  it  was  his  practice  to  resume  the  im- 
pressions he  had  carried  out  of  every  country  where  he 
had  made  a  long  stay,  in  a  short  sentence,  which  he 
caused  to  be  engraved  upon  some  trinket.  "I  am 
leaving  this  country  now,  and  this  is  what  I  bring  away 
from  it,"  he  continued,  taking  off  his  finger  a  new  ring 
to  show  to  his  colleague  the  inscription  inside:  "La 
Russie,  cest  le  neant." 

Prince  Bismarck  had  the  truth  of  the  matter  and 
was  neither  too  modest  nor  too  discreet  to  speak  out. 
Certainly  he  was  not  afraid  of  not  being  believed.  Yet 
he  did  not  shout  his  knowledge  from  the  house-tops. 
He  meant  to  have  the  phantom  as  his  accomplice  in  an 
enterprise  which  has  set  the  clock  of  peace  back  for 
many  a  year. 

He  had  his  way.  The  German  Empire  has  been  an 
accomplished  fact  for  more  than  the  third  of  a  century — 
a  great  and  dreadful  legacy  left  to  the  world  by  the  ill- 
omened  phantom  of  Russia's  might. 

It  is  that  phantom  which  is  disappearing  now — un- 
expectedly, astonishingly,  as  if  by  a  touch  of  that  won- 
derful magic  for  which  the  East  has  always  been 
famous.  The  pretence  of  belief  in  its  existence  will 
no  longer  answer  anybody's  purposes  (now  Prince  Bis- 
marck is  dead)  unless  the  purposes  of  llie  writers  of 


AUTOCRACY  AND  WAR  95 

sensational  paragraphs  as  to  this  Neant  making  an 
armed  descent  upon  the  plains  of  India.  That  sort  of 
folly  would  be  beneath  notice  if  it  did  not  distract  at- 
tention from  the  real  problem  created  for  Europe  by  a 
war  in  the  Par  East. 

For  good  or  evil  in  the  working  out  of  her  destiny, 
Russia  is  bound  to  remain  a  Neant  for  many  long  years, 
in  a  more  even  than  a  Bismarckian  sense.  The  very 
fear  of  this  spectre  being  gone,  it  behoves  us  to  con- 
sider its  legacy — the  fact  (no  phantom  that)  accom- 
plished in  Central  Europe  by  its  help  and  connivance. 

The  German  Empire  may  feel  at  bottom  the  loss  of 
an  old  accomplice  always  amenable  to  the  confidential 
whispers  of  a  bargain;  but  in  the  first  instance  it  cannot 
but  rejoice  at  the  fundamental  weakening  of  a  possible 
obstacle  to  its  instincts  of  territorial  expansion.  There 
is  a  removal  of  tliat  latent  feeling  of  restraint  which  the 
presence  of  a  powerful  neighbour,  however  implicated 
with  you  in  a  sense  of  common  guilt,  is  bound  to  inspire. 
The  common  guilt  of  the  two  Empires  is  defined  pre- 
cisely by  their  frontier  line  running  through  the  Polish 
provinces.  Without  indulging  in  excessive  feelings  of 
indignation  at  that  country's  partition,  or  going  so  far 
as  to  believe — with  a  late  French  politician — in  the 
"immanente  justice  des  choses,"  it  is  clear  that  a 
material  situation,  based  upon  an  essentially  immoral 
transaction,  contains  the  germ  of  fatal  differences  in 
the  temperament  of  the  two  partners  in  iniquity — 
whatever  the  iniquity  is.  Germany  has  been  the  evil 
counsellor  of  Russia  on  all  the  questions  of  her  Polish 
problem.  Always  Urging  the  adoption  of  the  most 
repressive  measures  with  a  perfectly  logical  duplicity. 
Prince  Bismarck's  Empire  has  taken  care  to  couple 
the  neighbourly  offers  of  military  assistance  with 
merciless  advice.    The  thought  of  the  Polish  provinces 


96         NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

accepting  a  frank  reconciliation  with  a  humanised 
Russia  and  bringing  the  weight  of  homogeneous  loyalty 
within  a  few  miles  of  Berlin,  has  been  always  intensely 
distasteful  to  the  arrogant  Germanising  tendencies  of 
the  other  partner  in  iniquity.  And,  besides,  the  way 
to  the  Baltic  provinces  leads  over  the  Niemen  and  over 
the  Vistula, 

And  now,  when  there  is  a  possibility  of  serious 
internal  disturbances  destroying  the  sort  of  order 
autocracy  has  kept  in  Russia,  the  road  over  these  rivers 
is  seen  wearing  a  more  inviting  aspect.  At  any  moment 
the  pretext  of  armed  intervention  may  be  found  in  a 
revolutionary  outbreak  provoked  by  Socialists,  perhaps 
• — but  at  any  rate  by  the  political  immaturity  of  the 
enlightened  classes  and  by  the  political  barbarism  of 
the  Russian  people.  The  throes  of  Russian  resurrection 
will  be  long  and  painful.  This  is  not  the  place  to  specu- 
late upon  the  nature  of  these  convulsions,  but  ther*?. 
must  be  some  violent  break-up  of  the  lamentable 
tradition,  a  shattering  of  the  social,  of  the  adminis- 
trative— certainly  of  the  territorial — unity. 

Voices  have  been  heard  saying  that  the  time  for 
reforms  in  Russia  is  already  past.  This  is  the  super- 
ficial view  of  the  more  profound  truth  that  for  Russia 
there  has  never  been  such  a  time  within  the  memory 
of  mankind.  It  is  impossible  to  initiate  a  rational 
scheme  of  reform  upon  a  phase  of  blind  absolutism; 
and  in  Russia  there  has  never  been  anything  else  to 
which  the  faintest  tradition  could,  after  ages  of  error, 
go  back  as  to  a  parting  of  ways. 

In  Europe  the  old  monarchical  principle  stands  justi- 
fied in  its  historical  struggle  with  the  growth  of  political 
liberty  by  the  evolution  of  the  idea  of  nationality  as  we 
see  it  concreted  at  the  present  time;  by  the  inception 
of  that  wider  solidarity  grouping  together  around  the 


AUTOCRACY  AND  WAR  97 

standard  of  monarchical  power  these  larger  agglom- 
erations of  mankind.  This  service  of  unification,  creat- 
ing close-knit  communities  possessing  the  ability,  the 
will,  and  the  power  to  pursue  a  common  ideal,  has  pre- 
pared the  ground  for  the  advent  of  a  still  larger  un- 
derstanding: for  the  solidarity  of  Europeanism,  which 
must  be  the  next  step  towards  the  advent  of  Concord 
and  Justice;  an  advent  that,  however  delayed  by  the 
fatal  worship  of  force  and  the  errors  of  national  selfish- 
ness, has  been,  and  remains,  the  only  possible  goal  of  our 
progress. 

The  conceptions  of  legality,  of  larger  patriotism, 
of  national  duties  and  aspirations  have  grown  under 
the  shadow  of  the  old  monarchies  of  Europe,  which 
were  the  creations  of  historical  necessity.  There  were 
seeds  of  wisdom  in  their  very  mistakes  and  abuses. 
They  had  a  past  and  a  future;  they  were  human.  But 
under  the  shadow  of  Russian  autocracy  nothing  could 
grow.  Russian  autocracy  succeeded  to  nothing;  it  had 
no  historical  past,  and  it  cannot  hope  for  a  historical 
future.  It  can  only  end.  By  no  industry  of  in- 
vestigation, by  no  fantastic  stretch  of  benevolence,  can 
it  be  presented  as  a  phase  of  development  through 
which  a  Society,  a  State,  must  pass  on  the  way  to  the 
full  consciousness  of  its  destiny.  It  lies  outside  the 
stream  of  progress.  This  despotism  has  been  utterly 
un-European.  Neither  has  it  been  Asiatic  in  its  na- 
ture. Oriental  despotisms  belong  to  the  history  of 
mankind;  they  have  left  their  trace  on  our  minds  and 
our  imagination  by  their  splendour,  by  their  culture,  by 
tlieir  art,  by  the  exploits  of  great  conquerors.  The 
record  of  their  rise  and  decay  has  an  intellectual  value; 
they  are  in  their  origins  and  their  course  the  manifesta- 
tions of  human  needs,  the  instruments  of  racial  tempera- 
ment, of  catastrophic  force,  of  faith  and  fanaticism. 


98         NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

The  Russian  autocracy  as  we  see  it  now  is  a  thing  apart. 
It  is  impossible  to  assign  to  it  any  rational  origin  in 
the  vices,  the  misfortunes,  the  necessities,  or  the  as- 
pirations of  mankind.  That  despotism  has  neither  an 
European  nor  an  Oriental  parentage;  more,  it  seems  to 
have  no  root  either  in  the  institutions  or  the  follies  of 
this  earth.  What  strikes  one  with  a  sort  of  awe  is  just 
this  something  inhuman  in  its  character.  It  is  like  a 
visitation,  like  a  curse  from  Heaven  falling  in  the  dark- 
ness of  ages  upon  the  immense  plains  of  forest  and 
steppe  lying  dumbly  on  the  confines  of  two  continents: 
a  true  desert  harbouring  no  Spirit  either  of  the  East  or 
of  the  West. 

This  pitiful  fate  of  a  country  held  by  an  evil  spell, 
suffering  from  an  awful  visitation  for  which  the  re- 
sponsibility cannot  be  traced  either  to  her  sins  or  her 
follies,  has  made  Russia  as  a  nation  so  difficult  to 
understand  by  Europe.  From  the  very  first  ghastly 
dawn  of  her  existence  as  a  State  she  had  to  breathe  the 
atmosphere  of  despotism;  she  found  nothing  but  the 
arbitrary  will  of  an  obscure  autocrat  at  the  beginning 
and  end  of  her  organisation.  Hence  arises  her  im- 
penetrability to  whatever  is  true  in  Western  thought. 
Western  thought,  when  it  crosses  her  frontier,  falls 
under  the  spell  of  her  autocracy  and  becomes  a  noxious 
parody  of  itself.  Hence  the  contradictions,  the  riddles 
of  her  national  life,  which  are  looked  upon  with  such 
curiosity  by  the  rest  of  the  world.  The  curse  had 
entered  her  very  soul;  autocracy,  and  nothing  else  in 
the  world,  has  moulded  her  institutions,  and  with  the 
poison  of  slavery  drugged  the  national  temperament 
into  the  apathy  of  a  hopeless  fatalism.  It  seems  to 
have  gone  into  the  blood,  tainting  every  mental  activity 
in  its  source  by  a  half -mystical,  insensate,  fascinating 
assertion  of  purity  and  holiness.     The  Government  of 


AUTOCRACY  AND  WAR  99 

m 

Holy  Russia,  arrogating  to  itself  the  supreme  power  to 
torment  and  slaughter  the  bodies  of  its  subjects  like  a 
God-sent  scourge,  has  been  most  cruel  to  those  whom 
it  allowed  to  live  under  the  shadow  of  its  dispensations. 
The  worst  crime  against  humanity  of  that  system  we 
behold  now  crouching  at  bay  behind  vast  heaps  of 
mangled  corpses  is  the  ruthless  destruction  of  in- 
numerable minds.  The  greatest  horror  of  the  world — 
madness — walked  faithfully  in  its  train.  Some  of  the 
best  intellects  of  Russia,  after  struggling  in  vain  against 
the  spell,  ended  by  throwing  themselves  at  the  feet 
of  that  hopeless  despotism  as  a  giddy  man  leaps  into 
an  abyss.  An  attentive  survey  of  Russia's  literature, 
of  her  Church,  of  her  administration  and  the  cross- 
currents of  her  thought,  must  end  in  the  verdict  that  the 
Russia  of  to-daj^  has  not  the  right  to  give  her  voice  on  a 
single  question  touching  the  future  of  humanity,  be- 
cause from  the  very  inception  of  her  being  the  brutal 
destruction  of  dignity,  of  truth,  of  rectitude,  of  all  that 
is  faithful  in  human  nature  has  been  made  the  im- 
perative condition  of  her  existence.  The  great  govern- 
mental secret  of  that  imperium  which  Prince  Bismarck 
had  the  insight  and  the  courage  to  call  Le  Neant,  has 
been  the  extirpation  of  every  intellectual  hope.  To 
pronounce  in  the  face  of  such  a  past  the  word  Evolution, 
which  is  precisely  the  expression  of  the  highest  in- 
tellectual hope,  is  a  gruesome  pleasantry.  There  can 
be  no  evolution  out  of  a  grave.  Another  word  of  less 
scientific  sound  has  been  very  much  pronounced  of  late 
in  connection  with  Russia's  future,  a  word  of  more 
vague  import,  a  word  of  dread  as  much  as  of  hope — 
Revolution. 

In  the  face  of  the  events  of  the  last  four  months,  this 
word  has  sprung  instinctively,  as  it  were,  on  grave  lips, 
and  has  been  heard  with  solemn  forebodings.    More  or 


100        NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

less  consciously,  Europe  is  preparing  herself  for  a 
spectacle  of  much  violence  and  perhaps  of  an  inspiring 
nobility  of  greatness.  And  there  will  be  nothing  of 
what  she  expects.  She  will  see  neither  the  anticipated 
character  of  the  violence,  nor  yet  any  signs  of  generous 
greatness.  Her  expectations,  more  or  less  vaguely 
expressed,  give  the  measure  of  her  ignorance  of  that 
Neant  which  for  so  many  years  had  remained  hidden 
behind  this  phantom  of  invincible  armies. 

Neant  I  In  a  way,  yes!  And  yet  perhaps  Prince 
Bismarck  has  let  himself  be  led  away  by  the  seduction 
of  a  good  phrase  into  the  use  of  an  inexact  form.  The 
form  of  his  judgment  had  to  be  pithy,  striking,  en- 
graved within  a  ring.  If  he  erred,  then,  no  doubt  he 
erred  deliberately.  The  saying  was  near  enough  the 
truth  to  serve,  and  perhaps  he  did  not  want  to  destroy 
utterly  by  a  more  severe  definition  the  prestige  of  the 
sham  that  could  not  deceive  his  genius.  Prince  Bis- 
marck has  been  really  complimentary  to  the  useful 
phantom  of  the  autocratic  might.  There  is  an  awe- 
inspiring  idea  of  infinity  conveyed  in  the  word  Neant — 
and  in  Russia  there  is  no  idea.  She  is  not  a  Neant,  she 
is  and  has  been  simply  the  negation  of  everything  worth 
living  for.  She  is  not  an  empty  void,  she  is  a  yawning 
chasm  open  between  East  and  West;  a  bottomless  abyss 
that  has  swallowed  up  every  hope  of  mercy,  every 
aspiration  towards  personal  dignity,  towards  freedom, 
towards  knowledge,  every  ennobling  desire  of  the  heart, 
every  redeeming  whisper  of  conscience.  Those  that 
have  peered  into  that  abyss,  where  the  dreams  of 
Panslavism,  of  universal  conquest,  mingled  with  the 
hate  and  contempt  for  Western  ideas,  drift  impo 
tently  like  shapes  of  mist,  know  well  that  it  is  bottom- 
less; that  there  is  in  it  no  ground  for  anything  that 
could  in  the  remotest  degree  serve  even  the  lowest 


AUTOCRACY  AND  WAR  101 

interests  of  mankind — and  certainly  no  ground  ready 
for  a  revolution.  The  sin  of  the  old  European  mon- 
archies was  not  the  absolutism  inherent  in  every  form 
of  government ;  it  was  the  inability  to  alter  the  forms  of 
their  legality,  grown  narrow  and  oppressive  with  the 
march  of  time.  Every  form  of  legality  is  bound  to 
degenerate  into  oppression,  and  the  legality  in  the  forms 
of  monarchical  institutions  sooner,  perhaps,  than  any 
other.  It  has  not  been  the  business  of  monarchies  to  be 
adaptive  from  within.  With  the  mission  of  uniting 
and  consolidating  the  particular  ambitions  and  in- 
terests of  feudalism  in  favour  of  a  larger  conception 
of  a  State,  of  giving  self-consciousness,  force  and 
nationality  to  the  scattered  energies  of  thought  and 
action,  they  were  fated  to  lag  behind  the  march  of  ideas 
they  had  themselves  set  in  motion  in  a  direction  they 
could  neither  understand  nor  approve.  Yet,  for  all 
that,  the  thrones  still  remain,  and  what  is  more  signifi- 
cant, perhaps,  some  of  the  dynasties,  too,  have  sur- 
vived. The  revolutions  of  European  States  have  never 
been  in  the  nature  of  absolute  protests  en  masse  against 
the  monarchical  principle;  they  were  the  uprising  of 
the  people  against  the  oppressive  degeneration  of 
legality.  But  there  never  has  been  any  legality  in 
Russia;  she  is  a  negation  of  that  as  of  everything  else 
that  has  its  root  in  reason  or  conscience.  The  ground 
of  every  revolution  had  to  be  intellectually  prepared. 
A  revolution  is  a  short  cut  in  the  rational  development 
of  national  needs  in  response  to  the  growth  of  world- 
wide ideals.  It  is  conceivably  possible  for  a  monarch 
of  genius  to  put  himself  at  the  head  of  a  revolution  with- 
out ceasing  to  be  the  king  of  his  people.  For  the  autoc- 
racy of  Holy  Russia  the  only  conceivable  self-reform 
is — suicide. 

The  same  relentless  fate  holds  in  its  grip  the  all- 

LIERARY 
UNIVERSITY  Cv  CALIFORNIA 


102        NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETFERS 

powerful  ruler  and  his  helpless  people.  Wielders  of  a 
power  purchased  by  an  unspeakable  baseness  of  sub- 
jection to  the  Khans  of  the  Tartar  horde,  the  Princes 
of  Russia  who,  in  their  heart  of  hearts  had  come  in  time 
to  regard  themselves  as  superior  to  every  monarch  of 
Europe,  have  never  risen  to  be  the  chiefs  of  a  nation. 
Their  authority  has  never  been  sanctioned  by  popular 
tradition,  by  ideas  of  intelligent  loyalty,  of  devotion,  of 
political  necessity,  of  simple  expediency,  or  even  by  the 
power  of  the  sword.  In  whatever  form  of  upheaval  Au- 
tocratic Russia  is  to  find  her  end,  it  can  never  be  a  revo- 
lution fruitful  of  moral  consequences  to  mankind.  It 
cannot  be  anything  else  but  a  rising  of  slaves.  It  is  a 
tragic  circumstance  that  the  only  thing  one  can  wish  to 
that  people  who  had  never  seen  face  to  face  either  law, 
order,  justice,  right,  truth  about  itself  or  the  rest  of  the 
world;  who  had  known  nothing  outside  the  capricious 
will  of  its  irresponsible  masters,  is  that  it  should  find  in 
the  approaching  hour  of  need,  not  an  organiser  or  a  law- 
giver, with  the  wisdom  of  a  Lycurgus  or  a  Solon  for  their 
service,  but  at  least  the  force  of  energy  and  desperation 
in  some  as  yet  unknown  Spartacus. 

A  brand  of  hopeless  mental  and  moral  inferiority  is 
set  upon  Russian  achievements;  and  the  coming  events 
of  her  internal  changes,  however  appalling  they  may  be 
in  their  magnitude,  will  be  nothing  more  impressive 
than  the  convulsions  of  a  colossal  body.  As  her  boasted 
military  force  that,  corrupt  in  its  origin,  has  ever  struck 
no  other  but  faltering  blows,  so  her  soul,  kept  benumbed 
by  her  temporal  and  spiritual  master  with  the  poison  of 
tyranny  and  superstition,  will  find  itself  on  awakening 
possessed  of  no  language,  a  monstrous  full-grown  child 
having  first  to  learn  the  ways  of  living  thought  and. 
articulate  speech.  It  is  safe  to  say  tyranny,  assunting 
a  thousand  protean  shapes,  will  remain  clinging  to  her 


AUTOCRACY  AND  WAR  103 

struggles  for  a  long  time  before  her  blind  multitudes 
succeed  at  last  in  trampling  her  out  of  existence  under 
their  millions  of  bare  feet. 

That  would  be  the  beginning.  What  is  to  come 
after.f*  The  conquest  of  freedom  to  call  your  soul  your 
own  is  only  the  first  step  on  the  road  to  excellence. 
W^e,  in  Europe,  have  gone  a  step  or  two  further,  have 
had  the  time  to  forget  how  little  that  freedom  means. 
To  Russia  it  must  seem  everything.  A  prisoner  shut 
up  in  a  noisome  dungeon  concentrates  all  his  hope  and 
desire  on  the  moment  of  stepping  out  beyond  the  gates. 
It  appears  to  him  pregnant  with  an  imm^ense  and  final 
importance;  whereas  what  is  important  is  the  spirit  in 
which  he  will  draw  the  first  breath  of  freedom,  the 
counsels  he  will  hear,  the  hands  he  may  find  extended, 
the  endless  days  of  toil  that  must  follow,  wherein  he 
will  have  to  build  his  future  with  no  other  material  but 
what  he  can  find  within  himseK. 

It  would  be  vain  for  Russia  to  hope  for  the  support 
and  counsel  of  collective  wisdom.  Since  1870  (as  a 
distinguished  statesman  of  the  old  tradition  disconso- 
lately exclaimed)  "il  n'y  a  plus  d' Europe!"  There 
is,  indeed,  no  Europe.  The  idea  of  a  Europe  united  in 
the  solidarity  of  her  dynasties,  which  for  a  moment 
seemed  to  dawn  on  the  horizon  of  the  Vienna  Congress 
through  the  subsiding  dust  of  Napoleonic  alarums  and 
excursions,  has  been  extinguished  by  the  larger  glamour 
of  less  restraining  ideals.  Instead  of  the  doctrines  of 
solidaritv  it  was  the  doctrine  of  nationalities  much 
more  favourable  to  spoliations  that  came  to  the  front, 
and  since  its  greatest  triumphs  at  Sadowa  and  Sedan 
there  is  no  Europe.  IMeanwhile  till  the  time  comes 
when  there  will  be  no  frontiers,  there  are  alliances  so 
shamelessly  based  upon  the  exigencies  of  suspicion  and 
mistrust  that  their  cohesive  force  waxes  and  wanes  with 


104        NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

every  year,  almost  with  the  event  of  every  passing 
month.  This  is  the  atmosphere  Russia  will  find  when 
the  last  rampart  of  tyranny  has  been  beaten  down. 
But  what  hands,  what  voices  will  she  find  on  coming 
out  into  the  light  of  day?  An  ally  she  has  yet  who 
more  than  any  other  of  Russia's  allies  has  found  that 
it  had  parted  with  lots  of  solid  substance  in  exchange 
for  a  shadow.  It  is  true  that  the  shadow  was  indeed 
the  mightiest,  the  darkest  that  the  modern  world  had 
ever  known — and  the  most  overbearing.  But  it  is 
fading  now,  and  the  tone  of  truest  anxiety  as  to  what 
is  to  take  its  place  will  come,  no  doubt,  from  that  and 
no  other  direction,  and  no  doubt,  also,  it  will  have  that 
note  of  generosity  which  even  in  the  moments  of  great- 
est aberration  is  seldom  wanting  in  the  voice  of  the 
French  people. 

Two  neighbours  Russia  will  find  at  her  door.  Aus^ 
tria,  traditionally  unaggressive  whenever  her  hand  is  not 
forced,  ruled  by  a  dynasty  of  uncertain  future,  weakened 
by  her  duality,  can  only  speak  to  her  in  an  uncertain, 
bi-lingual  phrase.  Prussia,  grown  in  something  like 
forty  years  from  an  almost  pitiful  dependant  into  a 
bullying  friend  and  evil  counsellor  of  Russia's  masters, 
may,  indeed,  hasten  to  extend  a  strong  hand  to  the 
weakness  of  her  exhausted  body,  but  if  so  it  will  be  only 
with  the  intention  of  tearing  away  the  long-coveted 
part  of  her  substance. 

Pan-Germanism  is  by  no  means  a  shape  of  mists,  and 
Germany  is  anything  but  a  Neant  where  thought  and 
effort  are  likely  to  lose  themselves  without  sound  or 
trace.  It  is  a  powerful  and  voracious  organisation,  full 
of  unscrupulous  self-confidence,  whose  appetite  for 
aggrandisement  will  only  be  limited  by  the  power  of 
helping  itself  to  the  severed  members  of  its  friends  and 
neighbours.    The  era  of  wars  so  eloquently  denounced 


AUTOCRACY  AND  WAR  105 

by  the  old  Republicans  as  the  peculiar  blood  guilt  of 
dynastic  ambitions  is  by  no  means  over  yet.  They  will 
be  fought  out  differently,  with  lesser  frequency,  with  an 
increased  bitterness  and  the  savage  tooth-and-claw 
obstinacy  of  a  struggle  for  existence.  They  will  make 
us  regret  the  time  of  dynastic  ambitions,  with  their 
human  absurdity  moderated  by  prudence  and  even  by 
shame,  by  the  fear  of  personal  responsibility  and  the 
regard  paid  to  certain  forms  of  conventional  decency. 
For,  if  the  monarchs  of  Europe  have  been  derided  for 
addressing  each  other  as  "brother"  in  autograph  com- 
munications, that  relationship  was  at  least  as  effective 
as  any  form  of  brotherhood  likely  to  be  established  be- 
tween the  rival  nations  of  this  continent,  which,  we  are 
assured  on  all  hands,  is  the  heritage  of  democracy.  In 
the  ceremonial  brotherhood  of  monarchs  the  reality 
of  blood-ties,  for  what  little  it  is  worth,  acted  often  as 
a  drag  on  unscrupulous  desires  of  glory  or  greed.  Be- 
sides, there  was  always  the  common  danger  of  exas- 
perated peoples,  and  some  respect  for  each  other's 
divine  right.  No  leader  of  a  democracy,  without  other 
ancestry  but  the  sudden  shout  of  a  multitude,  and  de- 
barred by  the  very  condition  of  his  power  from  even 
thinking  of  a  direct  heir,  will  have  any  interest  in  calling 
brother  the  leader  of  another  democracy — a  chief  as 
fatherless  and  heirless  as  himself. 

The  war  of  1870,  brought  about  by  the  third  Napo- 
leon's half-generous,  half-selfish  adoption  of  the  prin- 
ciple of  nationalities,  was  the  first  war  characterised  by 
a  special  intensity  of  hate,  by  a  new  note  in  the  tune 
of  an  old  song  for  which  we  may  thank  the  Teutonic 
thoroughness.  Was  it  not  that  excellent  bourgeoise. 
Princess  Bismarck  (to  keep  only  to  great  examples), 
who  was  so  righteously  anxious  to  see  men,  women,  and 
children — emphatically  the  children,  too — of  the  abomi- 


106       NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

nable  French  nation  massacred  off  the  face  of  the  earth? 
This  illustration  of  the  new  war-temper  is  artlessly 
revealed  in  the  prattle  of  the  amiable  Busch,  the 
Chancellor's  pet  "reptile"  of  the  Press.  And  this  was 
supposed  to  be  a  war  for  an  idea!  Too  much,  however, 
should  not  be  made  of  that  good  wife's  and  mother's 
sentiments  any  more  than  of  the  good  First  Emperor 
William's  tears,  shed  so  abundantly  after  every  battle, 
by  letter,  telegram,  and  otherwise,  during  the  course 
of  the  same  war,  before  a  dumb  and  shamefaced  conti- 
nent. These  were  merely  the  expressions  of  the  sim- 
plicity of  a  nation  which  more  than  any  other  has  a 
tendency  to  run  into  the  grotesque.  There  is  worse 
to  come. 

To-day,  in  the  fierce  grapple  of  two  nations  of  dif- 
ferent race,  the  short  era  of  national  wars  seems  about 
to  close.  No  war  will  be  waged  for  an  idea.  The 
"noxious  idle  aristocracies"  of  yesterday  fought  with- 
out malice  for  an  occupation,  for  the  honour,  for  the  fun 
of  the  thing.  The  virtuous,  industrious  democratic 
States  of  to-morrow  may  yet  be  reduced  to  fighting 
for  a  crust  of  dry  bread,  with  all  the  hate,  ferocity,  and 
fury  that  must  attach  to  the  vital  importance  of  such 
an  issue.  The  dreams  sanguine  humanitarians  raised 
almost  to  ecstasy  about  the  year  'fifty  of  the  last 
century  by  the  moving  sight  of  the  Crystal  Palace — • 
crammed  full  with  that  variegated  rubbish  which  it 
seems  to  be  the  bizarre  fate  of  humanity  to  produce  for 
the  benefit  of  a  few  employers  of  labour — have  vanished 
as  quickly  as  they  had  arisen.  The  golden  hopes  of 
peace  have  in  a  single  night  turned  to  dead  leaves  in 
every  drawer  of  every  benevolent  theorist's  writing 
table.  A  swift  disenchantment  overtook  the  incredible 
infatuation  which  could  put  its  trust  in  the  peaceful 
nature  of  industrial  and  commercial  competition. 


AUTOCRACY  AND  WAR  107 

Industrialism  and  commercialism — wearing  high- 
sounding  names  in  many  languages  {Welt-politik  may 
serve  for  one  instance)  picking  up  coins  behind  the 
severe  and  disdainful  figure  of  science  whose  giant 
strides  have  Vvidened  for  us  the  horizon  of  the  universe 
by  some  few  inches — stand  ready,  almost  eager,  to 
appeal  to  the  sword  as  soon  as  the  globe  of  the  earth  has 
shrunk  beneath  our  growing  numbers  by  another  ell  or 
so.  And  democracy,  which  has  elected  to  pin  its  faith 
to  the  supremacy  of  material  interests,  will  have  to 
fight  their  battles  to  the  bitter  end,  on  a  mere  pittance — 
unless,  indeed,  some  statesman  of  exceptional  ability  and 
overwhelming  prestige  succeeds  in  carrying  through 
an  international  understanding  for  the  delimitation  of 
spheres  of  trade  all  over  the  earth,  on  the  model  of  the 
territorial  spheres  of  influence  marked  in  Africa  to  keep 
the  competitors  for  the  privilege  of  improving  the 
nigger  (as  a  buying  machine)  from  flying  prematurely 
at  each  other's  throats. 

This  seems  the  only  expedient  at  hand  for  the 
temporary  maintenance  of  European  peace,  with  its 
alliances  based  on  mutual  distrust,  preparedness  for  war 
as  its  ideal,  and  the  fear  of  wounds,  luckily  stronger,  so 
far,  than  the  pinch  of  hunger,  its  only  guarantee.  The 
true  peace  of  the  world  will  be  a  place  of  refuge  much 
less  like  a  beleaguered  fortress  and  more,  let  us  hope, 
in  the  nature  of  an  Inviolable  Temple.  It  will  be  built 
on  less  perishable  foundations  than  those  of  material 
interests.  But  it  must  be  confessed  that  the  archi- 
tectural aspect  of  the  universal  city  remains  as  yet  in- 
conceivable— that  the  very  ground  for  its  erection  has 
not  been  cleared  of  the  jungle. 

Never  before  in  history  has  the  right  of  war  been 
more  fully  admitted  in  the  rounded  periods  of  public 
speeches,  in  books,  in  public  prints,  in  all  the  public 


108        NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

works  of  peace,  culminating  in  the  establishment  of  the 
Hague  Tribunal — that  solemnly  official  recognition  of 
the  Earth  as  a  House  of  Strife.  To  him  whose  indig- 
nation is  qualified  by  a  measure  of  hope  and  affection, 
the  efforts  of  mankind  to  work  its  own  salvation  present 
a  sight  of  alarmmg  comicality.  After  clinging  for  ages 
to  the  steps  of  the  heavenly  throne,  they  are  now,  withx 
out  nmch  modifying  their  attitude,  trying  with  touching 
ingenuity  to  steal  one  by  one  the  thunderbolts  of  their 
Jupiter.  They  have  removed  war  from  the  list  of 
Heaven-sent  visitations  that  could  only  be  prayed 
against;  they  have  erased  its  name  from  the  supplication 
against  the  wrath  of  war,  pestilence,  and  famine,  as  it  i& 
found  in  the  litanies  of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church; 
they  have  dragged  the  scourge  down  from  the  skies  and 
have  made  it  into  a  calm  and  regulated  institution.  At, 
first  sight  the  change  does  not  seem  for  the  better. 
Jove's  thunderbolt  looks  a  most  dangerous  plaything 
in  the  hands  of  the  people.  But  a  solenuily  established 
institution  begins  to  grow  old  at  once  in  the  discussion^ 
abuse,  worship,  and  execration  of  men.  It  grows  ob- 
solete, odious,  and  intolerable;  it  stands  fatally  con- 
demned to  an  unhonoured  old  age. 

Therein  lies  the  best  hope  of  advanced  thought,  and 
the  best  way  to  help  its  prospects  is  to  provide  in  the 
fullest,  frankest  way  for  the  conditions  of  the  present 
day.  War  is  one  of  its  conditions;  it  is  its  principal 
condition.  It  lies  at  the  heart  of  every  question 
agitating  the  fears  and  hopes  of  a  humanity  divided 
against  itself.  The  succeeding  ages  have  changed 
nothing  except  the  watchwords  of  the  armies.  The 
intellectual  stage  of  mankind  being  as  yet  in  its  infancy, 
and  States,  like  most  individuals,  having  but  a  feeble 
and  imperfect  consciousness  of  the  worth  and  force  of 
the  inner  fife,  the  need  of  making  their  existence  mani- 


AUTOCRACY  AND  WAR  109 

fest  to  themselves  is  determined  in  the  direction  of 
physical  activity.  The  idea  of  ceasing  to  grow  in 
territory,  in  strength,  in  wealth,  in  influence — in  any- 
thing but  wisdom  and  self-knowledge  is  odious  to  them 
as  the  omen  of  the  end.  Action,  in  which  is  to  be  found 
the  illusion  of  a  mastered  destiny,  can  alone  satisfy  our 
uneasy  vanity  and  lay  to  rest  the  haunting  fear  of  the 
future — a  sentiment  concealed,  indeed,  but  proving  its 
existence  by  the  force  it  has,  when  invoked,  to  stir  the 
passions  of  a  nation.  It  will  be  long  before  we  have 
learned  that  in  the  great  darkness  before  us  there  is 
nothing  that  we  need  fear.  Let  us  act  lest  we  perish — 
is  the  cry.  And  the  only  form  of  action  open  to  a  State 
can  be  of  no  other  than  aggressive  nature. 

There  are  many  Idnds  of  aggressions,  though  the 
sanction  of  them  is  one  and  the  same — the  magazine 
rifle  of  the  latest  pattern.  In  preparation  for  or  against 
that  form  of  action  the  States  of  Europe  are  spending 
now  such  moments  of  uneasy  leisure  as  they  can  snatch 
from  the  labours  of  factory  and  counting-house. 

Never  before  has  war  received  so  much  homage  at 
the  lips  of  men,  and  reigned  with  less  disputed  sway 
in  their  minds.  It  has  harnessed  science  to  its  gun- 
carriages,  it  has  enriched  a  few  respectable  manu- 
facturers, scattered  doles  of  food  and  raiment  amongst 
a  few  thousand  skilled  workmen,  devoured  the  first 
youth  of  whole  generations,  and  reaped  its  harvest  of 
countless  corpses.  It  has  perverted  the  intelligence  of 
men,  women,  and  children,  and  has  made  the  speeches 
of  Emperors,  Kings,  Presidents,  and  Ministers  monoto- 
nous with  ardent  protestations  of  fidelity  to  peace. 
Indeed,  war  has  made  peace  altogether  its  own,  it  has 
modelled  it  on  its  own  image:  a  martial,  overbearing, 
war-lord  sort  of  peace,  with  a  mailed  fist,  and  turned - 
up  moustaches,  ringing  with  the  din  of  grand  manoeu- 


110       NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

vres,  eloquent  with  allusions  to  glorious  feats  of  arras;  it 
has  made  peace  so  magnificent  as  to  be  almost  as  ex- 
pensive to  keep  up  as  itself.  It  has  sent  out  apostles 
of  its  own,  who  at  one  time  went  about  (mostly  in 
newspapers)  preaching  the  gospel  of  the  mystic  sanc- 
tity of  its  sacrifices,  and  the  regenerating  power  of  spilt 
blood,  to  the  poor  in  mind — whose  name  is  legion. 

It  has  been  observed  that  in  the  course  of  earthly 
greatness  a  day  of  culminating  triumph  is  often  paid  for 
by  a  morrow  of  sudden  extinction.  Let  us  hope  it  is 
so.  Yet  the  dawn  of  that  day  of  retribution  may  be  a 
long  time  breaking  above  a  dark  horizon.  War  is  with 
us  now;  and,  whether  this  one  ends  soon  or  late,  war 
will  be  with  us  again.  And  it  is  the  way  of  true  wisdom 
for  men  and  States  to  take  account  of  things  as  they 
are. 

Civilization  has  done  its  httle  best  by  our  sensibilities 
for  whose  growth  it  is  responsible.  It  has  managed  to 
remove  the  sights  and  sounds  of  battlefields  away  from 
our  doorsteps.  But  it  cannot  be  expected  to  achieve 
the  feat  always  and  under  every  variety  of  circum- 
stance. Some  day  it  must  fail,  and  we  shall  have  then 
a  wealth  of  appallingly  unpleasant  sensations  brought 
home  to  us  with  painful  intimacy.  It  is  not  absurd 
to  suppose  that  whatever  war  comes  to  us  next  it  will 
not  be  a  distant  war  waged  by  Russia  either  beyond 
the  Amur  or  beyond  the  Oxus. 

The  Japanese  armies  have  laid  that  ghost  for  ever, 
because  the  Russia  of  the  future  w^ill  not,  for  the  rea- 
sons explained  above,  be  the  Russia  of  to-day.  It  will 
not  have  the  same  thoughts,  resentments  and  aims.  It 
is  even  a  question  whether  it  will  preserve  its  gigantic 
frame  unaltered  and  unbroken.  All  speculation  loses 
itself  in  the  magnitude  of  the  events  made  possible  by 
the  defeat  of  an  autocracy  whose  only  shadow  of  a  title 


AUTOCRACY  AND  WAR  111 

to  existence  was  the  invincible  power  of  military  con- 
quest. That  autocratic  Russia  will  have  a  miserable 
end  in  harmony  with  its  base  origin  and  inglorious  life 
does  not  seem  open  to  doubt.  The  problem  of  the  im- 
mediate future  is  posed  not  by  the  eventual  manner 
but  by  the  approaching  fact  of  its  disappearance. 

The  Japanese  armies,  in  laying  the  oppressive  ghost, 
have  not  only  accomplished  what  will  be  recognized 
historically  as  an  important  mission  in  the  world's 
struggle  against  all  forms  of  evil,  but  have  also  created 
a  situation.  They  have  created  a  situation  in  the  East 
which  they  are  competent  to  manage  by  themselves; 
and  in  doing  this  they  have  brought  about  a  change  in 
the  condition  of  the  West  with  which  Europe  is  not  v,  ell 
prepared  to  deal.  The  common  ground  of  concord, 
good  faith  and  justice  is  not  sufficient  to  establish  an 
action  upon;  since  the  conscience  of  but  very  few  men 
amongst  us,  and  of  no  single  Western  nation  as  yet, 
will  brook  the  restraint  of  abstract  ideas  as  against  the 
fascination  of  a  material  advantage.  And  eagle-eyed 
wisdom  alone  cannot  take  the  lead  of  human  action, 
which  in  its  nature  must  for  ever  remain  short-sighted. 
The  trouble  of  the  civilised  world  is  the  want  of  a  com- 
mon conservative  principle  abstract  enough  to  give  the 
impulse,  practical  enough  to  form  the  rallying  point  of 
international  action  tending  towards  the  restraint  of 
particular  ambitions.  Peace  tribunals  instituted  for 
the  greater  glory  of  war  will  not  replace  it.  Whether 
such  a  principle  exists — who  can  say.^*  If  it  does  not, 
then  it  ought  to  be  invented.  A  sage  with  a  sense  of 
humour  and  a  heart  of  compassion  should  set  about  it 
without  loss  of  time,  and  a  solemn  prophet  full  of  words 
and  fire  ought  to  be  given  the  task  of  preparing  the 
minds.  So  far  there  is  no  trace  of  such  a  principle  any- 
where in  sight;  even  its  plausible  imitations  (never  very 


112        NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

effective)  have  disappeared  long  ago  before  the  doctrine 
of  national  aspirations.  II  rCy  a  plus  d'Europe — there 
is  only  an  armed  and  trading  continent,  the  home  of 
slowly  maturing  economical  contests  for  life  and  death, 
and  of  loudly  proclaimed  world-wide  ambitions.  There 
are  also  other  ambitions  not  so  loud,  but  deeply  rooted 
in  the  envious  acquisitive  temperament  of  the  last 
comer  amongst  the  great  Powers  of  the  Continent, 
whose  feet  are  not  exactly  in  the  ocean — not  yet — and 
whose  head  is  very  high  up — in  Pomerania,  the  breeding 
place  of  such  precious  Grenadiers  that  Prince  Bismarck 
(whom  it  is  a  pleasure  to  quote)  would  not  have  given 
the  bones  of  one  of  them  for  the  settlement  of  the  old 
Eastern  Question.  But  times  have  changed,  since,  by 
way  of  keeping  up,  I  suppose,  some  old  barbaric  Ger- 
man rite,  the  faithful  servant  of  the  Hohenzollerns  was 
buried  alive  to  celebrate  the  accession  of  a  new  Emperor. 
Already  the  voice  of  surmises  has  been  heard  hinting 
tentatively  at  a  possible  re-grouping  of  European 
Powers.  The  alliance  of  the  three  Empires  is  supposed 
possible.  And  it  may  be  possible.  The  myth  of 
Russia's  power  is  dying  very  hard — hard  enough  for 
that  combination  to  take  place—such  is  the  fascination 
that  a  discredited  show  of  numbers  v/ill  still  exercise 
upon  the  imagination  of  a  people  trained  to  the  wor- 
ship of  force.  Germany  may  be  willing  to  lend  its 
support  to  a  tottering  autocracy  for  the  sake  of  an 
undisputed  first  place  and  of  a  preponderating  voice 
in  the  settlement  of  every  question  in  that  souths 
east  of  Europe  which  merges  into  Asia.  No  prin- 
ciple being  involved  in  such  an  alhance  of  mere  ex- 
pediency, it  would  never  be  allowed  to  stand  in  the 
way  of  Germany's  other  ambitions.  The  fall  of  au- 
tocracy would  bring  its  restraint  automatically  to  an 
end.     Thus  it  may  be  believed  that  the  support  Russian 


AUTOCRACY  AND  WAR  118 

despotism  may  get  from  its  once  humble  friend  and 
client  will  not  be  stamped  by  that  thoroughness  which 
is  supposed  to  be  the  mark  of  German  superiority. 
Russia  weakened  down  to  the  second  place,  or  Russia 
eclipsed  altogether  during  the  throes  of  her  regenera- 
tion, will  answer  equally  well  the  plans  of  German 
policy — which  are  many  and  various  and  often  in- 
credible, though  the  aim  of  them  all  is  the  same: 
aggrandisement  of  territory  and  influence,  with  no 
regard  to  right  and  justice,  either  in  the  East  or  in  the 
West.  For  that  and  no  other  is  the  true  note  of  your 
Welt-politik  which  desires  to  live. 

The  German  eagle  with  a  Prussian  head  looks  all 
round  the  horizon  not  so  much  for  something  to  do  that 
would  count  for  good  in  the  records  of  the  earth,  as 
simply  for  something  good  to  get.  He  gazes  upon  the 
land  and  upon  the  sea  with  the  same  covetous  steadi- 
ness, for  he  has  become  of  late  a  maritime  eagle,  and 
has  learned  to  box  the  compass.  He  gazes  north  and 
south,  and  east  and  west,  and  is  inclined  to  look  in- 
temperately  upon  the  waters  of  the  Mediterranean 
when  they  are  blue.  The  disappearance  of  the  Russian 
phantom  has  given  a  foreboding  of  unwonted  freedom 
to  the  Welt-politik.  According  to  the  national  tendency 
this  assumption  of  Imperial  impulses  would  run  into 
the  grotesque  were  it  not  for  the  spikes  of  the  pickel- 
haubes  peeping  out  grimly  from  behind.  Germany's 
attitude  proves  that  no  peace  for  the  earth  can  be  found 
in  the  expansion  of  material  interests  which  she  seems 
to  have  adopted  exclusively  as  her  only  aim,  ideal,  and 
watchword.  For  the  use  of  those  who  gaze  half -un- 
believing at  the  passing  away  of  the  Russian  phantom, 
part  Ghoul,  part  Djinn,  part  Old  INIan  of  the  Sea,  and 
wait  half-doubting  for  the  birth  of  a  nation's  soul  in 
this  age  which  knows  no  miracles,  the  once-famous  say- 


114        NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

ing  of  poor  Gambetta,  tribune  of  the  people  (who  was 
simple  and  believed  in  the  "immanent  justice  of 
things")  may  be  adapted  in  the  shape  of  a  warning 
that,  so  far  as  a  future  of  liberty,  concord,  and  justice  is 
concerned:     *'l»e  Prussianisme — voild  Vennertiil" 


THE  CRIME  OF  PARTITION 

1919 

At  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century  when  the 
partition  of  Poland  had  become  an  accomphshed  fact 
the  world  qualified  it  at  once  as  a  crime.  This  strong 
condemnation  proceeded,  of  course,  from  the  West  of 
Europe;  the  Powers  of  the  centre,  Prussia  and  Austria, 
were  not  likely  to  admit  that  this  spoliation  fell  into 
the  category  of  acts  morally  reprehensible  and  carrying 
the  taint  of  anti-social  guilt.  As  to  Russia,  the  third 
party  to  the  crime,  and  the  originator  of  the  scheme,  she 
had  no  national  conscience  at  the  time.  The  will  of  its 
rulers  was  always  accepted  by  the  people  as  the  ex- 
pression of  an  omnipotence  derived  directly  from  God. 
As  an  act  of  mere  conquest  the  best  excuse  for  the 
partition  lay  simply  in  the  fact  that  it  happened  to 
be  possible;  there  was  the  plunder  and  there  was  the 
opportunity  to  get  hold  of  it.  Catherine  the  Great 
looked  upon  this  extension  of  her  dominions  with  a 
cynical  satisfaction.  Her  political  argument  that  the  de- 
struction of  Poland  meant  the  repression  of  revolution- 
ary ideas  and  the  checking  of  the  spread  of  Jacobinism 
in  Europe  was  a  characteristically  impudent  pretence. 
There  may  have  been  minds  here  and  there  amongst  the 
Russians  that  perceived,  or  perhaps  only  felt,  that  by 
the  annexation  of  the  greater  part  of  the  Polish  Re- 
public, Russia  approached  nearer  to  the  comity  of  civil- 
ised nations  and  ceased,  at  least  territorially?  to  be  an 
Asiatic  Power, 


116        NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

It  was  only  after  tlie  partition  of  Poland  that  Russia 
began  to  play  a  great  part  in  Europe.  To  such  states- 
men as  she  had  then  that  act  of  brigandage  must  have 
appeared  inspired  by  great  political  wisdom.  The 
King  of  Prussia,  faithful  to  the  ruling  principle  of  his 
life,  wished  simply  to  aggrandise  his  dominions  at  a 
much  smaller  cost  and  at  much  less  risk  than  he  could 
have  done  in  any  other  direction;  for  at  that  time  Po- 
land was  perfectly  defenceless  from  a  material  point  of 
view,  and  more  than  ever,  perhaps,  inclined  to  put  its 
faith  in  humanitarian  illusions.  Morally,  the  Re- 
public was  in  a  state  of  ferment  and  consequent  weak- 
ness, which  so  often  accompanies  the  period  of  social 
reform.  The  strength  arrayed  against  her  was  just  then 
overwhelming;  I  mean  the  comparatively  honest  (be- 
cause open)  strength  of  armed  forces.  But,  probably 
from  innate  inclination  towards  treachery,  Frederick 
of  Prussia  selected  for  himself  the  part  of  falsehood  and 
deception.  Appearing  on  the  scene  in  the  character  of 
a  friend  he  entered  deliberately  into  a  treaty  of  alliance 
with  the  Republic,  and  then,  before  the  ink  was  dry, 
tore  it  up  in  brazen  defiance  of  the  commonest  decency, 
which  must  have  been  extremely  gratifying  to  his  nat- 
ural tastes. 

As  to  Austria,  it  shed  diplomatic  tears  over  the  trans- 
action. They  can  not  be  called  crocodile  tears,  inso- 
much that  they  were  in  a  measure  sincere.  They  arose 
from  a  vivid  perception  that  Austria's  allotted  share  of 
the  spoil  could  never  compensate  her  for  the  accession 
of  strength  and  territory  to  the  other  two  Powers. 
Austria  did  not  really  want  an  extension  of  territory  at 
the  cost  of  Poland.  She  could  not  hope  to  improve  he!? 
frontier  in  that  way,  and  economically  she  had  no  need 
of  Galicia,  a  province  whose  natural  resources  wert 
.undeveloped  and  whose  salt  mines  did  not  arouse  her 


THE  CRIME  OF  PARTITION  117 

cupidity  because  she  had  salt  mines  of  her  owti.  No 
doubt  the  democratic  complexion  of  Polish  institutions 
was  very  distasteful  to  the  conservative  monarchy; 
Austrian  statesmen  did  see  at  the  time  that  the  real 
danger  to  the  prmciple  of  autocracy  was  in  the  West,  in 
France,  and  that  all  the  forces  of  Central  Europe  would 
be  needed  for  its  suppression.  But  the  movement 
towards  a  partage  on  the  part  of  Russia  and  Prussia  was 
too  definite  to  be  resisted,  and  Austria  had  to  follow 
their  lead  in  the  destruction  of  a  State  which  she  would 
have  preferred  to  preserve  as  a  possible  ally  against 
Prussian  and  Russian  ambitions.  It  may  be  truly  said 
that  the  destruction  of  Poland  secured  the  safety  of  the 
French  Revolution.  For  when  in  1795  the  crime  was 
consummated,  the  Revolution  had  turned  the  corner 
and  was  in  a  state  to  defend  itself  against  the  forces  of 
reaction. 

In  the  second  half  of  the  eighteenth  century  there 
were  two  centres  of  liberal  ideas  on  the  continent  of 
Europe:  France  and  Poland.  On  an  impartial  sur- 
vey one  may  say  without  exaggeration  that  then  France 
w^as  relatively  every  bit  as  weak  as  Poland;  even,  per- 
haps, more  so.  But  France's  geographical  position 
made  her  much  less  vulnerable.  She  had  no  powerful 
neighbours  on  her  frontier;  a  decayed  Spain  in  the  south 
and  a  conglomeration  of  small  German  Principalities  on 
the  east  were  her  happy  lot.  The  only  States  which 
dreaded  the  contamination  of  the  new  principles  and  had 
enough  power  to  combat  it  were  Prussia,  Austria,  and 
Russia,  and  they  had  another  centre  of  forbidden  ideas  to 
deal  with  in  defenceless  Poland,  unprotected  by  nature, 
and  offering  an  immediate  satisfaction  to  their  cupidity. 
They  made  their  choice,  and  the  untold  sufferings  of  a 
nation  which  would  not  die  was  the  price  exacted  by 
fate  for  the  triumph  of  revolutionary  ideals. 


118        NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

Thus  even  a  crime  may  become  a  moral  agent  by  the 
lapse  of  time  and  the  course  of  history.  Progress  leaves 
its  dead  by  the  way,  for  progress  is  only  a  great  ad- 
venture as  its  leaders  and  chiefs  know  very  well  in  their 
hearts.  It  is  a  march  into  an  undiscovered  country; 
and  in  such  an  enterprise  the  victims  do  not  count. 
As  an  emotional  outlet  for  the  oratory  of  freedom  it  was 
convenient  enough  to  remember  the  Crime  now  and 
then:  the  Crime  being  the  murder  of  a  State  and  the 
carving  of  its  body  into  three  pieces.  There  was  really 
nothing  to  do  but  to  drop  a  few  tears  and  a  few  flowers 
of  rhetoric  upon  the  grave.  But  the  spirit  of  the  nation 
refused  to  rest  therein.  It  haunted  the  territories  of 
the  Old  Republic  in  the  manner  of  a  ghost  haunting  its 
ancestral  mansion  where  strangers  are  making  them- 
selves at  home;  a  calumniated,  ridiculed,  and  pooh- 
pooh'd  ghost,  and  yet  never  ceasing  to  inspire  a  sort 
of  awe,  a  strange  uneasiness,  in  the  hearts  of  the  un- 
lawful possessors.  Poland  deprived  of  its  indepen- 
dence, of  its  historical  continuity,  with  its  religion 
and  language  persecuted  and  repressed,  became  a  mere 
geographical  expression.  And  even  that,  itself,  seemed 
strangely  vague,  had  lost  its  definite  character,  was 
rendered  doubtful  by  the  theories  and  the  claims  of  the 
spoliators  who,  by  a  strange  effect  of  uneasy  conscience, 
while  strenuously  denying  the  moral  guilt  of  the  trans- 
action, were  always  trying  to  throw  a  veil  of  high  recti- 
tude over  the  Crime.  What  was  m.ost  annoying  to 
their  righteousness  was  the  fact  that  the  nation,  stabbed 
to  the  heart,  refused  to  grow  insensible  and  cold.  That 
persistent  and  almost  uncanny  vitality  was  sometimes 
very  inconvenient  to  the  rest  of  Europe  also.  It  would 
intrude  its  irresistible  claim  into  every  problem  of 
European  politics,  into  the  theory  of  European  equi- 
librium, into  the  question  of  the  Near  East,  the  Italian 


THE  CRIME  OF  PARTITION  119 

question,  the  question  of  Schleswig-Holstein,  and  into 
the  doctrine  of  nationahties.  That  ghost,  not  content 
with  making  its  ancestral  halls  uncomfortable  for  the 
thieves,  haunted  also  the  Cabinets  of  Europe,  waved 
indecently  its  bloodstained  robes  in  the  solemn  at- 
mosphere of  Council-rooms,  where  congresses  and  con- 
ferences sit  with  closed  windows.  It  would  not  be 
exorcised  by  the  brutal  jeers  of  Bismarck  and  the  fine 
railleries  of  Gorchakov.  As  a  Polish  friend  observed 
to  me  some  years  ago:  "Till  the  year  '48  the  Pohsh 
problem  has  been  to  a  certain  extent  a  convenient 
rallying-point  for  all  manifestations  of  liberalism. 
Since  that  time  we  have  come  to  be  regarded  sunply  as  a 
nuisance.     It's  very  disagreeable." 

I  agreed  that  it  was,  and  he  continued:  "Wliat  are 
we  to  do.'*  We  did  not  create  the  situation  by  any  out- 
side action  of  ours.  Through  all  the  centuries  of  its 
existence  Poland  has  never  been  a  menace  to  anybody, 
not  even  to  the  Turks,  to  whom  it  has  been  merely  an 
obstacle." 

Nothing  could  be  more  true.  The  spirit  of  aggressive- 
ness was  absolutely  foreign  to  the  Polish  temperament, 
to  which  the  preservation  of  its  institutions  and  its 
liberties  was  much  more  precious  than  any  ideas  of  con- 
quest. Polish  wars  were  defensive,  and  they  were 
mostly  fought  within  Poland's  own  borders.  And  that 
those  territories  were  often  invaded  was  but  a  mis- 
fortune arising  from  its  geographical  position.  Terri- 
torial expansion  was  never  the  master-thought  of 
Polish  statesmen.  The  consolidation  of  the  territories 
of  the  serenissime  Republic,  which  made  of  it  a  Power 
of  the  first  rank  for  a  time,  was  not  accomplished  by 
force.  It  was  not  the  consequence  of  successful  aggres- 
sion, but  of  a  long  and  successful  defence  against  the 
raiding    neighbours    from    the    East.     The    lands    of 


120       NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

Lithuanian  and  Ruthenian  speech  were  never  con- 
quered by  Poland.  These  peoples  were  not  compelled 
by  a  series  of  exhausting  wars  to  seek  safety  in  annexi 
ation.  It  was  not  the  will  of  a  prince  or  a  political 
intrigue  that  brought  about  the  union.  Neither  was  it 
fear.  The  slowly-matured  view  of  the  economical  and 
social  necessities  and,  before  all,  the  ripening  moral 
sense  of  the  masses  were  the  motives  that  induced  the 
forty-three  representatives  of  Lithuanian  and  Ru- 
thenian provinces,  led  by  their  paramount  prince,  to 
enter  into  a  political  combination  unique  in  the  history 
of  the  world,  a  spontaneous  and  complete  union  of 
sovereign  States  choosing  deliberately  the  way  of  peace. 
Never  was  strict  truth  better  expressed  in  a  political 
instrument  than  in  the  preamble  of  the  first  Union 
Treaty  (1413).  It  begins  with  the  words:  "ThisUnion^ 
being  the  outcome  not  of  hatred,  but  of  love" — words 
that  Poles  have  not  heard  addressed  to  them  politically 
by  any  nation  for  the  last  one  hundred  and  fifty  years. 
This  union  being  an  organic,  living  thing  capable  of 
growth  and  development  was,  later,  modified  and  con- 
firmed by  two  other  treaties,  which  guaranteed  to  all 
the  parties  in  a  just  and  eternal  union  all  their  rights, 
liberties,  and  respective  institutions.  The  Polish  State 
offers  a  singular  instance  of  an  extremely  liberal  ad- 
ministrative federalism  which,  in  its  Parliamentary  life 
as  well  as  its  international  politics,  presented  a  complete 
unity  of  feeling  and  purpose.  As  an  eminent  French 
diplomatist  remarked  many  years  ago:  "It  is  a  very 
remarkable  fact  in  the  history  of  the  Polish  State,  this 
invariable  and  unanimous  consent  of  the  populations; 
the  more  so  that,  the  King  being  looked  upon  simply 
as  the  chief  of  the  Republic,  there  was  no  monarchical 
bond,  no  dynastic  fidelity  to  control  and  guide  the 
sentiment  of  the  nations,  and  their  union  remained  as  a 


THE  CRIIVIE  OF  PARTITION         ,  121 

pure  affirmation  of  the  national  will."  The  Grand 
Duchy  of  Lithuania  and  its  Ruthenian  Provinces  re- 
tained their  statutes,  their  own  administration,  and 
their  own  political  institutions.  That  those  institu- 
tions in  the  course  of  time  tended  to  assimilatioii 
with  the  Polish  forta  was  not  the  result  of  any  pres- 
sure, but  simply  of  the  superior  character  of  Polish 
civilisation. 

Even  after  Poland  lost  its  independence  this  alliance 
and  this  union  remained  firm  in  spirit  and  fidelity.  All 
the  national  movements  towards  liberation  were 
initiated  in  the  name  of  the  whole  mass  of  people  in- 
habiting the  limits  of  the  Old  Republic,  and  all  the 
Provinces  took  part  in  them  with  complete  devotion. 
It  is  only  in  the  last  generation  that  efforts  have  been 
made  to  create  a  tendency  towards  separation,  which 
would  indeed  serve  no  one  but  Poland's  common  ene- 
mies. And,  strangely  enough,  it  is  the  internationalists, 
men  who  professedly  care  nothing  for  race  or  country, 
who  have  set  themselves  this  task  of  disruption,  one  can 
easily  see  for  what  sinister  purpose.  The  ways  of  the 
internationalists  may  be  dark,  but  they  are  not  in- 
scrutable. 

From  the  same  source  no  doubt  there  will  flow  in  the 
future  a  poisoned  stream  of  hints  of  a  reconstituted 
Poland  being  a  danger  to  the  races  once  so  closely 
associated  within  the  territories  of  the  Old  Republic. 
The  old  partners  in  "the  Crime"  are  not  likely  to  for- 
give their  victim  its  inconvenient  and  almost  shocking 
obstinacy  in  keeping  alive.  They  had  tried  moral 
assassination  before  and  with  some  small  measure 
of  success,  for,  indeed,  the  Polish  question,  like  ail 
living  reproaches,  had  become  a  nuisance.  Given  the 
wrong,  and  the  apparent  impossibility  of  righting  it 
without  ruimi»g  risks  of  a  serious  nature,  some  moral 


122       NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

alleviation  may  be  found  in  the  belief  that  the  victim 
had  brought  its  misfortunes  on  its  own  head  by  its  own 
sins.  That  theory,  too,  had  been  advanced  about 
Poland  (as  if  other  nations  had  knovm  nothing  of  sin 
and  folly),  and  it  made  some  way  in  the  world  at  dif- 
ferent times,  simply  because  good  care  was  taken  by  the 
interested  parties  to  stop  the  mouth  of  the  accused. 
But  it  has  never  carried  much  conviction  to  honest 
minds.  Somehow,  in  defiance  of  the  cynical  point  of 
view  as  to  the  Force  of  Lies  and  against  all  the  power  of 
falsified  evidence,  truth  often  turns  out  to  be  stronger 
than  calumny.  With  the  course  of  years,  however, 
another  danger  sprang  up,  a  danger  arising  naturally 
from  the  new  political  alliances  dividing  Europe  into 
two  armed  camps.  It  was  the  danger  of  silence.  Al- 
most without  exception  the  Press  of  Western  Europe 
in  the  twentieth  century  refused  to  touch  the  Polish 
question  in  any  shape  or  form  whatever.  Never  was 
the  fact  of  Polish  vitality  more  embarrassing  to 
European  diplomacy  than  on  the  eve  of  Poland's 
resurrection. 

When  the  war  broke  out  there  was  something  grue- 
somely  comic  in  the  proclamations  of  emperors  and 
archdukes  appealing  to  that  invincible  soul  of  a  nation 
whose  existence  or  moral  worth  they  had  been  so  arro-* 
gantly  denying  for  more  than  a  century.  Perhaps  in 
the  whole  record  of  human  transactions  there  have  never 
been  performances  so  brazen  and  so  vile  as  the  mani- 
festoes of  the  German  Emperor  and  the  Grand  Duke 
Nicholas  of  Russia;  and,  I  imagine,  no  more  bitter  insult 
has  been  offered  to  human  heart  and  intelligence  than 
the  way  in  which  those  proclamations  were  flung  into 
the  face  of  historical  truth.  It  was  like  a  scene  in  a 
cynical  and  sinister  farce,  the  absurdity  of  which  be- 
came in  some  sort  unfathomable  by  the  reflection  that 


THE  CRIME  OF  PAETITION  123 

nobody  in  the  world  could  possibly  be  so  abjectly  stupid 
as  to  be  deceived  for  a  single  moment.  At  that  time, 
and  for  the  first  two  months  of  the  war,  I  happened 
to  be  in  Poland,  and  I  remember  perfectly  well  that, 
when  those  precious  documents  came  out,  the  confi- 
dence in  the  moral  turpitude  of  mankind  they  implied 
did  not  even  raise  a  scornful  smile  on  the  hps  of  men 
whose  most  sacred  feelings  and  dignity  they  outraged. 
They  did  not  deign  to  waste  their  contempt  on  them. 
In  fact,  the  situation  was  too  poignant  and  too  involved 
for  either  hot  scorn  or  a  coldly  rational  discussion. 
For  the  Poles  it  was  like  being  in  a  burnmg  house  of 
which  all  the  issues  were  locked.  There  was  nothing 
but  sheer  anguish  under  the  strange,  as  if  stony,  calm- 
ness which  in  the  utter  absence  of  all  hope  falls  on 
minds  that  are  not  constitutionally  prone  to  despair. 
Yet  in  this  time  of  dismay  the  irrepressible  vitality  of 
the  nation  v^^ould  not  accept  a  neutral  attitude.  I  was 
told  that  even  if  there  were  no  issue  it  was  absolutely 
necessary  for  the  Poles  to  affirm  their  national  existence. 
Passivity,  which  could  be  regarded  as  a  craven  accept- 
ance of  all  the  material  and  moral  horrors  ready  to  fall 
upon  the  nation,  was  not  to  be  thought  of  for  a  moment. 
Therefore,  it  was  explained  to  me,  the  Poles  must  act. 
Whether  this  was  a  counsel  of  wisdom  or  not  it  is  very 
difiScult  to  say,  but  there  are  crises  of  the  soul  which 
are  beyond  the  reach  of  wisdom.  When  there  is 
apparently  no  issue  visible  to  the  eyes  of  reason,  senti- 
ment may  yet  find  a  way  out,  either  towards  salvation 
or  to  utter  perdition,  no  one  can  tell — and  the  senti- 
ment does  not  even  ask  the  question.  Being  there  as 
a  stranger  in  that  tense  atmosphere,  wliich  was  yet  not 
unfamiliar  to  me,  I  was  not  very  anxious  to  parade  my 
wisdom,  especially  after  it  had  been  pointed  out  in 
answer  to  my  cautious  arguments  that,  if  life  has  its 


124        NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

values  worth  fighting  for,  death,  too,  has  that  in  it 
which  can  make  it  worthy  or  unworthy. 

Out  of  the  mental  and  moral  trouble  into  which  the 
grouping  of  the  Powers  at  the  beginning  of  war  had 
thrown  the  counsels  of  Poland  there  emerged  at  last  the 
decision  that  the  Polish  Legions,  a  peace  organisation 
in  Galicia  directed  by  Pilsudski  (afterwards  given  the 
rank  of  General  and  now  apparently  the  Chief  of  the 
Government  in  Warsaw),  should  take  the  field  against 
the  Russians.  In  reality  it  did  not  matter  against 
which  partner  in  the  "Crime"  Polish  resentment 
should  be  directed.  There  was  little  to  choose  be- 
tween the  methods  of  Russian  barbarism,  which  were 
both  crude  and  rotten,  and  the  cultivated  brutality 
tinged  with  contempt  of  Germany's  superficial,  grind- 
ing civilisation.  There  was  nothing  to  choose  between 
them.  Both  were  hateful,  and  the  direction  of  the 
Polish  effort  was  naturally  governed  by  Austria's 
tolerant  attitude,  which  had  connived  for  years  at  the 
semi-secret  organisation  of  the  Polish  Legions.  Be- 
sides, the  material  possibility  pointed  out  the  way. 
That  Poland  should  have  turned  at  first  against  the 
ally  of  Western  Powers,  to  whose  moral  support  she 
had  been  looking  for  so  many  years,  is  not  a  greater 
monstrosity  than  that  alliance  with  Russia  which  had 
been  entered  into  by  England  and  France  with  rather 
less  excuse  and  with  a  view  to  eventualities  which 
could  perhaps  have  been  avoided  by  a  firmer  policy 
and  by  a  greater  resolution  in  the  face  of  what  plainly 
appeared  unavoidable. 

For  let  the  truth  be  spoken.  The  action  of  Germany, 
however  cruel,  sanguinary,  and  faithless,  was  nothing 
in  the  nature  of  a  stab  in  the  dark.  The  Germanic 
Tribes  had  told  the  whole  world  in  all  possible  tones 
carrying  conviction,  the  gently  persuasive,  the  coldly 


THE  CRIME  OF  PARTITION  125 

logical;  in  tones  Hegelian,  Nietzschean,  war-like,  pious, 
cynical,  inspired,  what  they  were  going  to  do  to  the 
inferior  races  of  the  earth,  so  full  of  sin  and  all  un- 
worthiness.  But  with  a  strange  similarity  to  the  prophets 
of  old  (who  were  also  great  moralists  and  invokers  of 
might)  they  seemed  to  be  crying  in  a  desert.  Whatever 
might  have  been  the  secret  searching  of  hearts,  the 
Worthless  Ones  would  not  take  heed.  It  must  also  be 
admitted  that  the  conduct  of  the  menaced  Govern- 
ments carried  with  it  no  suggestion  of  resistance.  It 
was  no  doubt,  the  effect  of  neither  courage  nor  fear,  but 
of  that  prudence  which  causes  the  average  man  to 
stand  very  still  in  the  presence  of  a  savage  dog.  It  was 
not  a  very  politic  attitude,  and  the  more  reprehensible 
in  so  far  that  it  seemed  to  arise  from  the  mistrust  of  their 
own  people's  fortitude.  On  simple  matters  of  life  and 
death  a  people  is  always  better  than  its  leaders,  because  a 
people  cannot  argue  itself  as  a  whole  into  a  sophisticated 
state  of  mind  out  of  deference  for  a  mere  doctrine  or 
from  an  exaggerated  sense  of  its  own  cleverness.  I  am 
speaking  now  of  democracies  whose  chiefs  resemble  the 
tyrant  of  Syracuse  in  this  that  their  power  is  unlimited 
(for  who  can  limit  the  will  of  a  voting  people?)  and  who 
always  see  the  domestic  sword  hanging  by  a  hair  above 
their  heads. 

Perhaps  a  different  attitude  would  have  checked  Ger- 
man self-confidence,  and  her  overgrown  militarism  would 
have  died  from  the  excess  of  its  own  strength.  What 
would  have  been  then  the  moral  state  of  Europe  it  is 
difficult  to  say.  Some  other  excess  would  probably 
have  taken  its  place,  excess  of  theory,  or  excess  of  senti- 
ment, or  an  excess  of  the  sense  of  security  leading  to 
some  other  form  of  catastrophe;  but  it  is  certain  that  in 
that  case  the  Polish  question  would  not  have  taken  a 
concrete  form  for  ages.     Perhaps  it  would  never  have 


126        NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

taken  form!  In  this  world,  where  everything  is  tran- 
sient, even  the  most  reproachful  ghosts  end  by  vanish- 
ing out  of  old  mansions,  out  of  men's  consciences. 
Progress  of  enlightenment,  or  decay  of  faith?  In  the 
years  before  the  war  the  Polish  ghost  was  becoming 
so  thin  that  it  was  impossible  to  get  for  it  the  slightest 
mention  in  the  papers.  A  young  Pole  coming  to  me 
from  Paris  was  extremely  indignant,  but  I,  indulging 
in  that  detachment  which  is  the  product  of  greater  age, 
longer  experience,  and  a  habit  of  meditation,  refused 
to  share  that  sentiment.  He  had  gone  begging  for  a 
word  on  Poland  to  many  influential  people,  and  they 
had  one  and  all  told  him  that  they  were  going  to  do  no 
such  thing.  They  were  all  men  of  ideas  and  therefore 
might  have  been  called  idealists,  but  the  notion  most 
strongly  anchored  in  their  minds  was  the  folly  of  touch- 
ing a  question  which  certainly  had  no  m.erit  of  actuality 
and  would  have  had  the  appalling  effect  of  provoking 
the  wrath  of  their  old  enemies  and  at  the  same  time 
offending  the  sensibilities  of  their  new  friends.  It  was 
an  unanswerable  argument.  I  couldn't  share  my  young 
friend's  surprise  and  indignation.  My  practice  of  re- 
flection had  also  convinced  me  that  there  is  nothing 
on  earth  that  turns  quicker  on  its  pivot  than  political 
idealism  when  touched  by  the  breath  of  practical 
politics. 

It  would  be  good  to  remember  that  Polish  independ- 
ence as  embodied  in  a  Polish  State  is  not  the  gift  of  any 
kind  of  journalism,  neither  is  it  the  outcome  even  of 
some  particularly  benevolent  idea  or  of  any  clearly 
apprehended  sense  of  guilt.  I  am  speaking  of  what  I 
know  when  I  say  that  the  original  and  only  formative 
idea  in  Europe  was  the  idea  of  delivering  the  fate  of 
Poland  into  the  hands  of  Russian  Tsarism.  And,  let 
us  remember,  it  was  assumed  then  to  be  a  victorious 


THE  CRIME  OF  PARTITION  127 

Tsarism  at  that.  It  was  an  idea  talked  of  openly, 
entertained  seriously,  presented  as  a  benevolence,  with 
a  curious  blindness  to  its  grotesque  and  ghastly  charac- 
ter. It  was  the  idea  of  delivering  the  victim  with  a  kindly 
smile  and  the  confident  assurance  that  "it  would  be  all 
right"  to  a  perfectly  unrepentant  assassin  who  after 
sawing  furiously  at  its  throat  for  a  hundred  years  or  so, 
was  expected  to  make  friends  suddenly  and  kiss  it  on 
both  cheeks  in  the  mystic  Russian  fashion.  It  was  a 
singularly  nightmarish  combination  of  international 
polity,  and  no  whisper  of  any  other  would  have  been 
officially  tolerated.  Indeed,  I  do  not  think  in  the  whole 
extent  of  western  Europe  there  was  anybody  who  had 
the  slightest  mind  to  whisper  on  that  subject.  Those 
were  the  days  of  the  dark  future,  when  Benckendorf 
put  do\\Ti  his  name  on  the  Committee  for  the  Relief  of 
Polish  Populations  driven  by  the  Russian  armies  into 
the  heart  of  Russia,  when  the  Grand  Duke  Nicholas 
(the  gentleman  who  advocated  a  St.  Bartholomew's 
Night  for  the  suppression  of  Russian  liberalism)  was 
displaying  his  "divine"  (I  have  read  the  very  word  in 
an  English  newspaper  of  standing)  strategy  in  the  great 
retreat,  when  Mr.  Iswolsky  carried  himself  haughtily  on 
the  banks  of  the  Seine,  and  it  was  beginning  to  dauTi 
upon  certain  people  there  that  he  was  a  greater  nuisance 
even  than  the  Polish  question. 

But  there  is  no  use  in  talking  about  all  that.  Some 
clever  person  has  said  that  it  is  always  the  unexpected 
that  happens,  and  on  a  calm  and  dispassionate  survey 
the  world  does  appear  mainly  to  one  as  a  scene  of 
miracles.  Out  of  Germany's  strength,  in  whose  pur- 
pose so  many  people  refused  to  believe,  came  Poland's 
opportunity,  in  which  nobody  could  have  been  expected 
to  believe.  Out  of  Russia's  collapse  emerged  that  for- 
bidden thing,  the  Polish  independence,  not  as  a  venge- 


128        NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

ful  figure,  the  retributive  shadow  of  the  crime,  but  as 
something  much  more  sohd  and  more  difficult  to  get  rid 
of — a  pohtical  necessity  and  a  moral  solution.  Directly 
it  appeared  its  practical  usefulness  became  undeniable, 
and  also  the  fact  that,  for  better  or  worse,  it  was  im- 
possible to  get  rid  of  it  again  except  by  the  unthinkable 
way  of  another  carving,  of  another  partition,  of  another 
crime. 

Therein  lie  the  strength  and  the  future  of  the  thing 
so  strictly  forbidden  no  farther  back  than  two  years  or 
so,  of  the  Polish  independence  expressed  in  a  Polish 
State.  It  comes  into  the  world  morally  free,  not  in 
virtue  of  its  sufferings,  but  in  virtue  of  its  miraculous 
rebirth  and  of  its  ancient  claim  for  services  rendered 
to  Europe.  Not  a  single  one  of  the  combatants  of  all 
the  fronts  of  the  world  has  died  consciously  for  Poland's 
freedom.  That  supreme  opportunity  was  denied  even  to 
Poland's  own  children.  And  it  is  just  as  well!  Provi- 
dence in  its  inscrutable  way  had  been  merciful,  for  had 
it  been  otherwise  the  load  of  gratitude  would  have  been 
too  great,  the  sense  of  obligation  too  crushing,  the  joy  of 
deliverance  too  fearful  for  mortals,  common  sinners 
with  the  rest  of  mankind  before  the  eye  of  the  Most 
High.  Those  who  died  East  and  West,  leaving  so  much 
anguish  and  so  much  pride  behind  them,  died  neither 
for  the  creation  of  States,  nor  for  empty  words,  nor  yet 
for  the  salvation  of  general  ideas.  They  died  neither 
for  democracy,  nor  leagues,  nor  systems,  nor  yet  for 
abstract  justice,  which  is  an  unfathomable  mystery. 
They  died  for  something  too  deep  for  words,  too  mighty 
for  the  common  standards  by  which  reason  measures  the 
advantages  of  life  and  death,  too  sacred  for  the  vain  dis- 
courses that  come  and  go  on  the  lips  of  dreamers,  fanat- 
ics, humanitarians,  and  statesmen.     They  died     .     .     . 

Poland's  independence  springs  up  from  that  great 


THE  CRIME  OF  PARTITION  ui 

immolation,  but  Poland's  loyalty  to  Europe  will  not  be 
rooted  in  anything  so  trenchant  and  burdensome  as  the 
sense  of  an  immeasurable  indebtedness,  of  that  gratitude 
which  in  a  worldly  sense  is  sometimes  called  eternal,  but 
which  lies  always  at  the  mercy  of  weariness  and  is  fatally 
condemned  by  the  instability  of  human  sentiments  to 
end  in  negation.  Polish  loyalty  will  be  rooted  in  some- 
thing much  more  solid  and  enduring,  in  something  that 
could  never  be  called  eternal,  but  which  is,  in  fact,  life- 
enduring.  It  will  be  rooted  in  the  national  tempera- 
ment, which  is  about  the  only  thing  on  earth  that  can  be 
trusted.  Men  may  deteriorate,  they  may  improve  too, 
but  they  don't  change.  Misfortune  is  a  hard  school 
which  may  either  mature  or  spoil  a  national  character, 
but  it  may  be  reasonably  advanced  that  the  long  course 
of  adversity  of  the  most  cruel  kind  has  not  injured  the 
fundamental  characteristics  of  the  Polish  nation  which 
has  proved  its  vitality  against  the  most  demoralizing 
odds.  The  various  phases  of  the  Polish  sense  of  self- 
preservation  struggling  amongst  the  menacing  forces 
and  the  no  less  threatening  chaos  of  the  neighbouring 
Powers  should  be  judged  impartially.  I  suggest  impar- 
tiality and  not  indulgence  simply  because,  when  apprais- 
ing the  Polish  question,  it  is  not  necessary  to  invoke  the 
softer  emotions.  A  little  calm  reflection  on  the  past 
and  the  present  is  all  that  is  necessary  on  the  part 
of  the  Western  world  to  judge  the  movements  of  a 
community  whose  ideals  are  the  same,  but  whose 
situation  is  unique.  This  situation  was  brought  vividly 
home  to  me  in  the  course  of  an  argument  more  than 
eighteen  months  ago.  "Don't  forget,"  I  was  told, 
"that  Poland  has  got  to  live  in  contact  with  Germany 
and  Russia  to  the  end  of  time.  Do  you  understand  the 
force  of  that  expression:  'To  the  end  of  time'.^^  Facts 
must  be  taken  into  account,  and  especially  appalling 


ISO        NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

facts  such  as  this,  to  which  there  is  no  possible  remedy 
on  earth.  For  reasons  which  are,  properly  speaking, 
physiological,  a  prospect  of  friendship  with  Germans  or 
Russians  even  in  the  most  distant  future  is  unthinkable. 
Any  alliance  of  heart  and  mind  would  be  a  monstrous 
thing,  and  monsters,  as  we  all  know,  cannot  live.  You 
can't  base  your  conduct  on  a  monstrous  conception.  We 
are  either  worth  or  not  worth  preserving,  but  the  horri- 
ble psychology  of  the  situation  is  enough  to  drive  the 
national  mind  to  distraction.  Yet  under  a  destructive 
pressure,  of  which  Western  Europe  can  have  no  notion, 
applied  by  forces  that  were  not  only  crushing  but 
corrupting,  we  have  preserved  our  sanity.  Therefore 
there  can  be  no  fear  of  our  losing  our  minds  simply  be- 
cause the  pressure  is  removed.  We  have  neither  lost 
our  heads  nor  yet  our  moral  sense.  Oppression,  not 
merely  political,  but  affecting  social  relations,  family 
life,  the  deepest  affections  of  human  nature,  and  the 
very  fount  of  natural  emotions,  has  never  made  us 
vengeful.  It  is  worthy  of  notice  that  with  every  in- 
centive present  in  our  emotional  reactions  we  had  no 
recourse  to  political  assassination.  Arms  in  hand, 
hopeless  or  hopefully,  and  always  against  immeasurable 
odds,  we  did  affirm  ourselves  and  the  justice  of  our 
cause;  but  wild  justice  has  never  been  a  part  of  our 
conception  of  national  manliness.  In  all  the  history 
of  Polish  oppression  there  was  only  one  shot  fired  which 
was  not  in  battle.  Only  one!  And  the  man  who  fired 
it  in  Paris  at  the  Emperor  Alexander  II.  was  but  an 
individual  connected  with  no  organisation,  representing 
no  shade  of  Polish  opinion.  The  only  effect  in  Poland 
was  that  of  profound  regret,  not  at  the  failure,  but  at 
the  mere  fact  of  the  attempt.  The  history  of  our 
captivity  is  free  from  that  stain ;  and  whatever  follies  in 
the  eyes  of  the  world  we  may  have  perpetrated,  we  have 


THE  CRIIME  OF  PARTITION  131 

neither  murdered  our  enemies  nor  acted  treacherously 
against  them,  nor  yet  have  been  reduced  to  the  point  of 
cursing  each  other." 

I  could  not  gainsay  the  truth  of  that  discourse,  I  saw 
as  clearly  as  my  interlocutor  the  impossibility  of  the 
faintest  sympathetic  bond  between  Poland  and  her 
neighbours  ever  being  formed  in  the  future.  The  only 
course  that  remains  to  a  reconstituted  Poland  is  the 
elaboration,  establishment,  and  preservation  of  the 
most  correct  method  of  political  relations  with  neigh- 
bours to  whom  Poland's  existence  is  bound  to  be  a 
humiliation  and  an  offence.  Calmly  considered  it  is  an 
appalling  task,  yet  one  may  put  one's  trust  in  that 
national  temperament  which  is  so  completely  free  from 
aggressiveness  and  revenge.  Therein  lie  the  founda- 
tions of  all  hope.  The  success  of  renewed  life  for  that 
nation  whose  fate  is  to  remain  in  exile,  ever  isolated 
from  the  West,  amongst  hostile  surroundings,  depends 
on  the  sympathetic  understanding  of  its  problems  by  its 
distant  friends,  the  Western  Powers,  which  in  their 
democratic  development  must  recognize  the  moral  and 
intellectual  kinship  of  that  distant  outpost  of  their  own 
type  of  civilisation,  which  was  the  only  basis  of  Polish 
culture. 

Whatever  may  be  the  future  of  Russia  and  the  final 
organisation  of  Germany,  the  old  hostility  must  remain 
unappeased,  the  fundamental  antagonism  must  endure 
for  years  to  come.  The  Crime  of  the  Partition  was 
committed  by  autocratic  Governments  which  were  the 
Governments  of  their  time;  but  those  Governments 
were  characterised  in  the  past,  as  they  will  be  in  the 
future,  by  their  people's  national  traits,  which  remain 
utterly  incompatible  with  the  Polish  mentality  and 
Polish  sentiment.  Both  the  German  submissiveness 
(idealistic  as  it  may  be)  and  the  Russian  lawlessness 


132        NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

(fed  on  the  corruption  of  all  the  virtues)  are  utterly 
foreign  to  the  Polish  nation,  whose  qualities  and  de- 
fects are  altogether  of  another  kind,  tending  to  a  certain 
exaggeration  of  individualism  and,  perhaps,  to  an  ext. 
treme  belief  in  the  Governing  Power  of  Free  Assent:  the 
one  invariably  vital  principle  in  the  internal  government 
of  the  Old  Republic.  There  was  never  a  history  more 
free  from  political  bloodshed  than  the  history  of  the 
Polish  State,  which  never  knew  either  feudal  in- 
stitutions or  feudal  quarrels.  At  the  time  when  heads 
were  falling  on  the  scaffolds  all  over  Europe  there  was 
only  one  political  execution  in  Poland — only  one;  and 
as  to  that  there  still  exists  a  tradition  that  the  great 
Chancellor  who  democratised  Polish  institutions,  and 
had  to  order  it  in  pursuance  of  his  political  purpose, 
could  not  settle  that  matter  with  his  conscience  till  the 
day  of  his  death.  Poland,  too,  had  her  civil  wars,  but 
this  can  hardly  be  made  a  matter  of  reproach  to  her  by 
the  rest  of  the  world.  Conducted  with  humanity,  they 
left  behind  them  no  animosities  and  no  sense  of  re- 
pression, and  certainly  no  legacy  of  hatred.  They  were 
but  a  recognised  argument  in  a  political  discussion  and 
tended  always  towards  conciliation. 

I  cannot  imagine,  whatever  form  of  democratic  gov- 
ernment Poland  elaborates  for  itself,  that  either  the 
nation  or  its  leaders  would  do  anything  but  welcome 
the  closest  scrutiny  of  their  renewed  political  existence. 
The  difficulty  of  the  problem  of  that  existence  will  be 
so  great  that  some  errors  will  be  unavoidable,  and  one 
may  be  sure  that  they  will  be  taken  advantage  of  by 
its  neighbours  to  discredit  that  living  witness  to  a  great 
historical  crime.  If  not  the  actual  frontiers,  then  the 
moral  integrity  of  the  new  State  is  sure  to  be  assailed 
before  the  eyes  of  Europe.  Economical  enmity  will 
also  come  iiito  play  when  the  world's  work  is  resumed 


THE  CRIME  OF  PARTITION  138 

again  and  competition  asserts  its  power.  Charges  of 
aggression  are  certain  to  be  made,  especially  as  related 
to  the  small  States  formed  of  the  territories  of  the  Old 
Republic.  And  everybody  knows  the  power  of  lies 
which  go  about  clothed  in  coats  of  many  colours, 
whereas,  as  is  well  known,  Truth  has  no  such  advantage, 
and  for  that  reason  is  often  suppressed  as  not  altogether 
proper  for  everj'-day  purposes.  It  is  not  often  recog- 
nised, because  it  is  not  always  fit  to  be  seen. 

Already  there  are  innuendoes,  threats,  hints  thrown 
out,  and  even  awful  instances  fabricated  out  of  in- 
adequate materials,  but  it  is  historically  unthinkable 
that  the  Poland  of  the  future,  with  its  sacred  tradition 
of  freedom  and  its  hereditary  sense  of  respect  for  the 
rights  of  individuals  and  States,  should  seek  its  pros- 
perity in  aggressive  action  or  in  moral  violence  against 
that  part  of  its  once  fellow-citizens  who  are  Ru- 
thenians  or  Lithuanians.  The  only  influence  that  can- 
not be  restrained  is  simply  the  influence  of  time,  which 
disengages  trutli  from  all  facts  with  a  merciless  logic  and 
prevails  over  the  passing  opinions,  the  changing  impulses 
of  men.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  moral  im- 
pulses and  the  material  interests  of  the  new  nationali- 
ties, which  seem  to  play  now  the  game  of  disintegration 
for  the  benefit  of  the  world's  enemies,  will  in  the  end 
bring  them  nearer  to  the  Poland  of  this  war's  creation, 
will  unite  them  sooner  or  later  by  a  spontaneous  move- 
ment towards  the  State  which  had  adopted  and  brought 
them  up  m  the  development  of  its  own  humane  culture 
— the  offspring  of  the  West. 


A  NOTE  ON  THE  POLISH  PROBLEM 

1916 

We  must  start  from  the  assumption  that  promises 
made  by  proclamation  at  the  beginning  of  this  war  may 
be  binding  on  the  individuals  who  made  them  under  the 
stress  of  coming  events  but  cannot  be  regarded  as  bind- 
ing the  Governments  after  the  end  of  the  war. 

Poland  has  been  presented  with  three  proclama- 
tions. Two  of  them  were  in  such  contrast  with  the 
avowed  principles  and  the  historic  action  for  the  last 
hundred  years  (since  the  Congress  of  Vienna)  of  the 
Powers  concerned,  that  they  were  more  like  cynical  in- 
sults to  the  nation's  deepest  feelings,  its  memory  and 
its  intelligence,  than  state  papers  of  a  conciliatory 
nature. 

The  German  promises  awoke  nothing  but  indignant 
contempt;  the  Russian  a  bitter  incredulity  of  the 
most  complete  kind.  The  Austrian  proclamation, 
which  made  no  promises  and  contented  itself  with 
pointing  out  the  Austro-PoHsh  relations  for  the  last 
45  years,  was  received  in  silence.  For  it  is  a  fact  that 
in  Austrian  Poland  alone  Polish  nationality  was  recog- 
nised as  an  element  of  the  Empire  and  that  the  in-j 
dividuals  could  breathe  the  air  of  freedom,  of  civil  Hie,] 
if  not  of  political  independence. 

But  for  Poles  to  be  Germanophile  is  unthinkable. 
To  be  Russophile  or  Austrophile  is  at  best  a  counsel  of 
despair  in  view  of  a  European  situation  which,  because 
of  the  grouping  of  the  Powers,  seems  to  shut  from  them 


A  NOTE  ON  THE  POLISH  PROBLEM    135 

every  hope,  expressed  or  unexpressed,  of  a  national 
future  nursed  through  more  than  a  hundred  years  of 
suffering  and  oppression. 

Through  most  of  these  years,  and  especially  since 
1830,  Poland  (I  use  this  expression  since  Poland  exists 
as  a  spiritual  entity  to-day  as  definitely  as  it  ever  ex- 
isted in  her  past)  has  put  her  faith  in  the  Western 
Powers.  Politically  it  may  have  been  nothing  more 
than  a  consoling  illusion,  and  the  nation  had  a  half- 
consciousness  of  this.  But  what  Poland  was  looking 
for  from  the  Western  Powers  without  discouragement 
and  with  unbroken  confidence  was  moral  support. 

This  is  a  fact  of  the  sentimental  order.  But  such 
facts  have  their  positive  value,  for  their  idealism  de- 
rives from  perhaps  the  highest  kind  of  reality.  A 
sentiment  asserts  its  claim  by  its  force,  persistence  and 
universality.  In  Poland  that  sentimental  attitude 
towards  the  Western  Powers  is  universal.  It  extends 
to  all  classes.  The  very  children  are  affected  by  it  as 
soon  as  they  begin  to  think. 

The  political  value  of  such  a  sentiment  consists  in 
this  that  it  is  based  on  profound  resemblances.  There- 
fore one  can  build  on  it  as  if  it  were  a  material  fact. 
For  the  same  reason  it  would  be  unsafe  to  disregard  it 
if  one  proposed  to  build  solidly.  The  Poles,  whom 
superficial  or  ill-informed  theorists  are  trying  to  force 
into  the  social  and  psychological  formula  of  Slavon- 
ism,  are  in  truth  not  Slavonic  at  all.  In  temperament, 
in  feeling,  in  mind,  and  even  in  unreason,  they  are 
Western,  with  an  absolute  comprehension  of  all  Western 
modes  of  thought,  even  of  those  which  are  remote  from 
their  historical  experience. 

That  element  of  racial  unity  which  may  be  called 
Polonism,  remained  compressed  between  Prussian 
Germanism  on  one  side  and  the  Russian  Slavonism  on 


136        NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

the  other.  For  Germanism  it  feels  nothing  but  hatred. 
But  between  Polonism  and  Slavonism  there  is  not  so 
much  hatred  as  a  complete  and  ineradicable  incom- 
patibility. 

No  political  work  of  reconstructing  Poland  either 
as  a  matter  of  justice  or  expediency  could  be  sound 
which  would  leave  the  new  creation  in  dependence  to 
Germanism  or  to  Slavonism. 

The  first  need  not  be  considered.  The  second  must 
be — unless  the  Powers  elect  to  drop  the  Polish  question 
either  under  the  cover  of  vague  assurances  or  without 
any  disguise  whatever. 

But  if  it  is  considered  it  will  be  seen  at  once  that  the 
Slavonic  solution  of  the  Polish  Question  can  offer  no 
guarantees  of  duration  or  hold  the  promise  of  security 
for  the  peace  of  Europe. 

The  only  basis  for  it  would  be  the  Grand  Duke's 
Manifesto.  But  that  Manifesto  signed  by  a  personage 
now  removed  from  Europe  to  Asia  and  by  a  man,  more- 
over, who  if  true  to  himself,  to  his  conception  of  patri- 
otism and  to  his  family  tradition  could  not  have  put  his 
hand  to  it  with  any  sincerity  of  purpose,  is  now  divested 
of  all  authority.  The  forcible  vagueness  of  its  promises, 
its  startling  inconsistency  with  the  hundred  years  of 
ruthlessly  denationalising  oppression  permit  one  to 
doubt  whether  it  was  ever  meant  to  have  any  authority. 

But  in  any  case  it  could  have  had  no  effect.  The 
very  nature  of  things  would  have  brought  to  nought 
its  professed  intentions. 

It  is  impossible  to  suppose  that  a  State  of  Russia's 
power  and  antecedents  would  tolerate  a  privileged 
community  (of,  to  Russia,  unnational  complexion) 
within  the  body  of  the  Empire.  All  history  shows 
that  such  an  arrangement  however,  hedged  in  by  the 
most   solemn   treaties   and   declarations,  cannot  last. 


A  NOTE  ON  THE  POLISH  PROBLEM    137 

In  this  case  it  would  lead  to  a  tragic  issue.  The  ab- 
sorption of  Polonism  is  unthinkable.  The  last  hundred 
years  of  European  history  proves  it  undeniably. 
There  remains  then  extirpation,  a  process  of  blood  and 
iron;  and  the  last  act  of  the  Polish  drama  would  be 
played  then  before  a  Europe  too  weary  to  interfere,  and 
to  the  applause  of  Germany. 

It  would  not  be  just  to  say  that  the  disappearance 
of  Polonism  would  add  any  strength  to  the  Slavonic 
power  of  expansion.  It  would  add  no  strength  but  it 
would  remove  a  possibly  effective  barrier  against  the 
surprises  the  future  of  Europe  may  hold  in  store  for  the 
Western  Powers. 

Thus  the  question  whether  Polonism  is  worth  saving 
presents  itself  as  a  problem  of  politics  with  a  practical 
bearing  on  the  stability  of  European  peace — as  a 
barrier  or  perhaps  better  (in  view  of  its  detached  posi- 
tion) as  an  outpost  of  the  Western  Powers  placed  be- 
tween the  great  might  of  Slavonism  which  has  not  yet 
made  up  its  mind  to  anything  and  the  organised  Ger- 
manism which  has  spoken  its  mind,  with  no  uncertain 
voice,  before  the  world. 

Looked  at  in  that  light  alone  Polonism  seems  worth 
saving.  That  it  has  lived  so  long  on  its  trust  in  the 
moral  support  of  the  Western  Powers  may  give  it 
another  and  even  stronger  claim,  based  on  a  truth  of  a 
more  profound  kind.  Polonism  had  resisted  the  utmost 
efforts  of  Germanism  and  Slavonism  for  more  than  a 
hundred  years.  Why.'  Because  of  the  strength  of  its 
ideals  conscious  of  their  kinship  with  the  West.  Such  a 
power  of  resistance  creates  a  moral  obligation  which  it 
would  be  unsafe  to  neglect.  There  is  always  a  risk  in 
throwing  away  a  tool  of  proved  temper. 

In  this  profound  conviction  of  the  practical  and 
ideal  worth  of  Polonism  one  approaches  tlie  problem  of 


138       NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

its  preservation  with  a  very  vivid  sense  of  the  practical 
difficulties  derived  from  the  grouping  of  the  Powers. 
The  uncertainty  of  the  extent  and  of  the  actual  form 
of  victory  for  the  Allies  will  increase  the  difficulty  of 
formulating  a  plan  of  Polish  regeneration  at  the  present 
moment. 

Poland,  to  strike  its  roots  again  into  the  soil  of 
political  Europe,  will  require  a  guarantee  of  security 
for  the  healthy  development  and  for  the  untrammelled 
play  of  such  institutions  as  she  may  be  enabled  to  give 
to  herself. 

Those  institutions  will  be  animated  by  the  spirit 
of  Polonism  which,  having  been  a  factor  in  the  history  of 
Europe  and  having  proved  its  vitality  under  oppression, 
has  established  its  right  to  live.  That  spirit  despised 
and  hated  by  German^''  and  incompatible  with  Slavon- 
ism  because  of  moral  differences,  cannot  avoid  being 
(in  its  renewed  assertion)  an  object  of  dislike  and  mis- 
trust. 

As  an  unavoidable  consequence  of  the  past  Poland 
will  have  to  begin  its  existence  in  an  atmosphere  of 
enmities  and  suspicions.  That  advanced  outpost  of 
Western  civilisation  will  have  to  hold  its  ground  in 
the  midst  of  hostile  camps:  always  its  historical  fate. 

Against  the  menace  of  such  a  specially  dangerous 
situation  the  paper  and  ink  of  public  Treaties  cannot  be 
an  effective  defence.  Nothing  but  the  actual,  living, 
active  participation  of  the  two  Western  Powers  in  the 
establishment  of  the  new  Polish  commonwealth  and  in 
the  first  20  years  of  its  existence,  will  give  the  Poles  a 
sufficient  guarantee  of  security  in  the  work  of  restoring 
their  national  life. 

An  Anglo-French  protectorate  would  be  the  ideal 
form  of  moral  and  material  support.  But  Russia,  as 
au  ally,  must  take  her  place  in  it  on  such  a  footing  as 


A  NOTE  ON  THE  POLISH  PROBLEM   139 

will  allay  to  the  fullest  extent  her  possible  apprehensions 
and  satisfy  her  national  sentiment.  That  necessity 
will  have  to  be  formally  recognised. 

In  reality  Russia  has  ceased  to  care  much  for  her 
Polish  possessions.  Public  recognition  of  a  mistake 
in  political  morality  and  a  voluntary  surrender  of 
territory  in  the  cause  of  European  concord,  cannot 
damage  the  prestige  of  a  powerful  State.  The  new 
spheres  of  expansion  in  regions  more  easily  assimilable, 
will  more  than  compensate  Russia  for  the  loss  of  ter- 
ritory on  the  Western  frontier  of  the  Empire. 

The  experience  of  Dual  Controls  and  similar  com- 
binations has  been  so  unfortunate  in  the  past  that  the 
suggestion  of  a  Triple  Protectorate  may  well  appear  at 
first  sight  monstrous  even  to  unprejudiced  minds.  But 
it  must  be  remembered  that  this  is  a  unique  case  and  a 
problem  altogether  exceptional,  justifying  the  employ- 
ment of  exceptional  means  for  its  solution.  To  those 
who  would  doubt  the  possibility  of  even  bringing  such 
a  scheme  into  existence  the  answer  may  be  made  that 
there  are  psychological  moments  when  any  measure 
tending  towards  the  ends  of  concord  and  justice  may 
be  brought  into  being.  And  it  seems  that  the  end  of 
the  war  would  be  the  moment  for  bringing  into  being 
the  political  scheme  advocated  in  this  note. 

Its  success  must  depend  on  the  singleness  of  purpose 
in  the  contracting  Powers,  and  on  the  wisdom,  the  tact, 
the  abilities,  the  good-will  of  men  entrusted  with  its 
initiation  and  its  further  control.  Finally  it  may  be 
pointed  out  that  this  plan  is  the  only  one  offering  serious 
guarantees  to  all  the  parties  occupying  their  respective 
positions  within  the  scheme. 

If  her  existence  as  a  State  is  admitted  as  just,  ex- 
pedient and  necessary,  Poland  has  the  moral  right  to  re- 
ceive her  constitution  not  from  the  hand  of  an  old 


140        NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

enemy,  but  from  the  Western  Powers  alone,  though  of 
course  with  the  fullest  concurrence  of  Russia. 

This  constitution,  elaborated  by  a  committee  of  Poles 
nominated  by  the  three  Governments,  will  (after  due 
discussion  and  amendment  by  the  High  Commissioners 
of  the  Protecting  Powers)  be  presented  to  Poland  as  the 
initial  document,  the  charter  of  her  new  life,  freely 
offered  and  unreservedly  accepted. 

It  should  be  as  simple  and  short  as  a  written  con- 
stitution can  be— establishing  the  Polish  Common- 
wealth, settling  the  lines  of  representative  institutions, 
the  form  of  Judicature,  and  leaving  the  greatest  meas- 
ure possible  of  self-government  to  the  provinces  form- 
ing part  of  the  re-created  Poland. 

This  constitution  will  be  promulgated  immediately 
after  the  three  Powers  had  settled  the  frontiers  of  the 
new  State,  including  the  town  of  Danzic  (free  port)  and 
a  proportion  of  seaboard.  The  legislature  will  then 
be  called  together  and  a  general  treaty  will  regulate 
Poland's  international  portion  as  a  protected  State,  the 
status  of  the  High  Commissioners  and  such-like  matters. 
The  legislature  will  ratify,  thus  making  Poland,  as  it 
were,  a  party  in  the  establishment  of  the  protectorate. 
A  point  of  importance. 

Other  general  treaties  will  define  Poland's  position  in 
the  Anglo-Franco-Russian  alliance,  fix  the  numbers  of 
the  army,  and  settle  the  participation  of  the  Powers  in 
its  organisation  and  training. 


POLAND  REVISITED 
1915 


I  HAVE  never  believed  in  political  assassination  as  a 
means  to  an  end,  and  least  of  all  in  assassination  of  the 
dynastic  order.  I  don't  know  how  far  murder  can  ever 
approach  the  perfection  of  a  fine  art,  but  looked  upon 
with  the  cold  eye  of  reason  it  seems  but  a  crude  expe- 
dient of  impatient  hope  or  hurried  despair.  There  are 
few  men  whose  premature  death  could  influence  human 
affairs  more  than  on  the  surface.  The  deeper  stream 
of  causes  depends  not  on  individuals  who,  like  the  mass 
of  mankind,  are  carried  on  by  a  destiny  which  no 
murder  has  ever  been  able  to  placate,  divert,  or  arrest. 

In  July  of  last  year  I  was  a  stranger  in  a  strange 
city  in  the  Midlands  and  particularly  out  of  touch  with 
the  world's  politics.  Never  a  very  diligent  reader  of 
newspapers,  there  were  at  that  time  reasons  of  a  private 
order  which  caused  me  to  be  even  less  informed  than 
usual  on  public  affairs  as  presented  from  day  to  day  in 
that  necessarily  atmosphereless,  perspectiveless  manner 
of  the  daily  papers,  which  somehow,  for  a  man  possessed 
of  some  historic  sense,  robs  them  of  all  real  interest.  I 
don't  think  I  had  looked  at  a  daily  for  a  month  past. 

But  though  a  stranger  in  a  strange  city  I  was  not 
lonely,  thanks  to  a  friend  who  had  travelled  there  out 
of  pure  kindness  to  bear  me  company  in  a  conjuncture 
which,  in  a  most  private  sense,  was  somewhat  trying. 

141 


142        NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

It  was  this  friend  who,  one  morning  at  breakfast, 
informed  me  of  the  murder  of  the  Archduke  Ferdinand. 

The  impression  was  mediocre.  I  was  barely  aware 
that  such  a  man  existed.  I  remembered  only  that  not 
long  before  he  had  visited  London.  The  recollection 
was  rather  of  a  cloud  of  insignificant  printed  words  his 
presence  in  this  country  provoked. 

Various  opinions  had  been  expressed  of  him,  but  his 
importance  was  Archducal,  dynastic,  purely  accidental. 
Can  there  be  in  the  world  of  real  men  anything  more 
shadowy  than  an  Archduke?  And  now  he  was  no 
more ;  removed  with  an  atrocity  of  circumstances  which 
made  one  more  sensible  of  his  humanity  than  when  he 
was  in  life.  I  connected  that  crime  with  Balkanic 
plots  and  aspirations  so  little  that  I  had  actually  to  ask 
where  it  had  happened.  My  friend  told  me  it  was  in 
Serajevo,  and  wondered  what  would  be  the  conse- 
quences of  that  grave  event.  He  asked  me  what  I 
thought  would  happen  next. 

It  was  with  perfect  sincerity  that  I  answered  "Noth- 
ing," and  having  a  great  repugnance  to  consider  murder 
as  a  factor  of  politics,  I  dismissed  the  subject.  It 
fitted  with  my  ethical  sense  that  an  act  cruel  and 
absurd  should  be  also  useless.  I  had  also  the  vision  of 
a  crowd  of  shadowy  Archdukes  in  the  background,  out 
of  which  one  would  step  forward  to  take  the  place  of 
that  dead  man  in  the  light  of  the  European  stage.  And 
then,  to  speak  the  whole  truth,  there  was  no  man 
capable  of  forming  a  judgment  who  attended  so  little 
to  the  march  of  events  as  I  did  at  that  time.  What  for 
want  of  a  more  definite  term  I  must  call  my  mind  was 
fixed  upon  my  own  affairs,  not  because  they  were  in 
a  bad  posture,  but  because  of  their  fascinating  holiday- 
promising  aspect.  I  had  been  obtaining  my  informa- 
tion as  to  Europe  at  second  hand,  from  friends  good 


POLAND  REVISITED  143 

enough  to  come  down  now  and  then  to  see  us.  They 
arrived  with  their  pockets  full  of  crumpled  newspapers, 
and  answered  my  queries  casually,  with  gentle  smiles 
of  scepticism  as  to  the  reality  of  my  interest.  And  yet 
I  was  not  indifferent;  but  the  tension  in  the  Balkans  had 
become  chronic  after  the  acute  crisis,  and  one  could  not 
help  being  less  conscious  of  it.  It  had  wearied  out  one's 
attention.  AMio  could  have  guessed  that  on  that  wild 
stage  we  had  just  been  looking  at  a  miniature  rehearsal 
of  the  great  world-drama,  the  reduced  model  of  the 
very  passions  and  violences  of  what  the  future  held  in 
store  for  the  Powers  of  the  Old  World  .^  Here  and 
there,  perhaps,  rare  minds  had  a  suspicion  of  that 
possibility,  while  they  watched  Old  Europe  stage-man- 
aging fussily  by  means  of  notes  and  conferences,  the 
prophetic  reproduction  of  its  awaiting  fate.  It  was 
wonderfully  exact  in  the  spirit;  same  roar  of  guns, 
same  protestations  of  superiority,  same  words  in  the  air; 
race,  liberation,  justice — and  the  same  mood  of  trivial 
demonstrations.  One  could  not  take  to-day  a  ticket  for 
Petersburg.  "You  mean  Petrograd,"  would  say  the 
booking  clerk.  Shortly  after  the  fall  of  Adrianople  a 
friend  cf  mine  passing  through  Sophia  asked  for  some 
cofe  Turc  at  the  end  of  his  lunch. 

*' Monsieur  veut  dire  Cafe  halkanique"  the  patriotic 
waiter  corrected  him  austerely. 

I  will  not  say  that  I  had  not  observed  something  of 
that  instructive  aspect  of  the  war  of  the  Balkans  both 
in  its  first  and  in  its  second  phase.  But  those  with 
whom  I  touched  upon  that  vision  were  pleased  to  see  in 
it  the  evidence  of  my  alarmist  cynicism.  As  to  alarm, 
I  pointed  out  that  fear  is  natural  to  man,  and  even 
salutary.  It  has  done  as  much  as  courage  for  the 
preservation  of  races  and  institutions.  But  from  a 
charge  of  cynicism  I  have  always  shrunk  instinctively. 


144        NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

It  is  like  a  charge  of  being  blind  in  one  eye,  a  moral 
disablement,  a  sort  of  disgraceful  calamity  that  must 
be  carried  off  with  a  jaunty  bearing — a  sort  of  thing  I 
am  not  capable  of.  Rather  than  be  thought  a  mere 
jaunty  cripple  I  allowed  myself  to  be  blinded  by  the 
gross  obviousness  of  the  usual  arguments.  It  was 
pointed  out  to  me  that  these  Eastern  nations  were  not 
far  removed  from  a  savage  state.  Their  economics 
were  yet  at  the  stage  of  scratching  the  earth  and  feeding 
the  pigs.  The  highly  developed  material  civilisation 
of  Europe  could  not  allow  itself  to  be  disturbed  by  a 
war.  The  industry  and  the  finance  could  not  allow 
themselves  to  be  disorganised  by  the  ambitions  of  an 
idle  class,  or  even  the  aspirations,  whatever  they  might 
be,  of  the  masses. 

Very  plausible  all  this  sounded.  War  does  not  pay. 
There  had  been  a  book  written  on  that  theme — an 
attempt  to  put  pacificism  on  a  material  basis.  Nothing 
more  solid  in  the  way  of  argument  could  have  been  ad- 
vanced on  this  trading  and  manufacturing  globe.  War 
was  "bad  business!"     This  was  final. 

But,  truth  to  say,  on  this  July  day  I  reflected  but 
little  on  the  condition  of  the  civilised  world.  Whatever 
sinister  passions  were  heaving  under  its  splendid  and 
complex  surface,  I  was  too  agitated  by  a  simple  and 
innocent  desire  of  my  own,  to  notice  the  signs  or  inter- 
pret them  correctly.  The  most  innocent  of  passions 
will  take  the  edge  off  one's  judgment.  The  desire  which 
possessed  me  was  simply  the  desire  to  travel.  And  that 
being  so  it  would  have  taken  something  very  plain  in 
the  way  of  symptoms  to  shake  my  simple  trust  in  the 
stability  of  things  on  the  Continent.  My  sentiment 
and  not  my  reason  was  engaged  there.  My  eyes  were 
turned  to  the  past,  not  to  the  future;  the  past  that  one 
cannot  suspect  and  mistrust,   the  shadowy  and  un- 


POLAND  REVISITED  145 

questionable  moral  possession  the  darkest  struggles  of 
which  wear  a  halo  of  glory  and  peace. 

In  the  preceding  month  of  May  we  had  received 
an  invitation  to  spend  some  weeks  in  Poland  in  a 
country  house  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Cracow,  but 
within  the  Russian  frontier.  The  enterprise  at  first 
seemed  to  me  considerable.  Since  leaving  the  sea,  to 
which  I  have  been  faithful  for  so  many  years,  I  have 
discovered  that  there  is  in  my  composition  very  little 
stuff  from  which  travellers  are  made.  I  confess  that  my 
first  impulse  about  a  projected  journey  is  to  leave  it 
alone.  But  the  invitation  received  at  first  with  a  sort 
of  dismay  ended  by  rousing  the  dormant  energy  of 
my  feelings.  Cracow  is  the  town  where  I  spent  wuth 
my  father  the  last  eighteen  months  of  his  life.  It  was 
in  that  old  royal  and  academical  city  that  I  ceased  to  be 
a  child,  became  a  boy,  had  known  the  friendships,  the 
admirations,  the  thoughts  and  the  indignations  of  that 
age.  It  was  within  those  historical  walls  that  I  began 
to  understand  things,  form  affections,  lay  up  a  store  of 
memories  and  a  fund  of  sensations  with  which  I  was  to 
break  violently  by  throwing  myself  into  an  unrelated 
existence.  It  was  like  the  experience  of  another  w^orld. 
The  wings  of  time  made  a  great  dusk  over  all  this, 
and  I  feared  at  first  that  if  I  ventured  bodily  in  there  I 
would  discover  that  I  who  have  had  to  do  with  a  good 
many  imaginary  lives  have  been  embracing  mere 
shadows  in  my  youth.  I  feared.  But  fear  in  itself 
may  become  a  fascination.  Men  have  gone,  alone  and 
trembling,  into  gi-aveyards  at  midnight — just  to  see 
what  would  happen.  And  this  adventure  was  to  be 
pursued  in  sunshine.  Neither  would  it  be  pursued 
alone.  The  invitation  was  extended  to  us  all.  This 
journey  would  have  something  of  a  migratory  charac- 
ter, the  invasion  of  a  tribe.     My  present,  all  that  gave 


146        NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

solidity  and  value  to  it,  at  any  rate,  would  stand  by  me 
in  this  test  of  the  reality  of  my  past.  I  was  pleased 
with  the  idea  of  showing  my  companions  what  Polish 
country  life  was  like;  to  visit  the  town  where  I  was  at 
school  before  the  boys  by  my  side  should  grow  too  old, 
and  gaining  an  individual  past  of  their  own,  should  lose 
their  unsophisticated  interest  in  mine.  It  is  only  in  the 
short  instants  of  earlj^  youth  that  we  have  the  faculty  of 
coming  out  of  ourselves  to  see  dimly  the  visions  and 
share  the  emotions  of  another  soul.  For  youth  all  is 
reality  in  this  vv^orld,  and  with  justice,  since  it  appre- 
hends so  vividly  its  images  behind  which  a  longer  life 
makes  one  doubt  whether  there  is  any  substance.  I 
trusted  to  the  fresh  receptivity  of  these  young  beings 
in  whom,  unless  Heredity  is  an  empty  word,  there 
should  have  been  a  fibre  which  would  answer  to  the 
sight,  to  the  atmosphere,  to  the  memories  of  that  cor- 
ner of  the  earth  where  my  own  boyhood  had  received 
its  earliest  independent  impressions. 

The  first  days  of  the  third  week  in  July,  while 
the  telegraph  wires  hummed  with  the  words  of  enormous 
import  which  were  to  fill  blue  books,  yellow  books, 
white  books,  and  to  arouse  the  wonder  of  mankind, 
passed  for  us  in  light-hearted  preparations  for  the 
journey.  Wliat  was  it  but  just  a  rush  through  Ger- 
many, to  get  across  as  quickly  as  possible.'^ 

Germany  is  the  part  of  the  earth's  solid  surface  of 
which  I  know  the  least.  In  all  my  life  I  had  been  across 
it  only  twice.  I  may  well  say  of  it  vidi  tantum; 
and  the  very  little  I  saw  was  through  the  window  of  a 
railway  carriage  at  express  speed.  Those  journeys  of 
mine  had  been  more  like  pilgrimages  when  one  hurries 
on  towards  the  goal  for  the  satisfaction  of  a  deeper  need 
than  curiosity.  In  this  last  instance,  too,  I  was  so  in- 
curious that  I  would  have  liked  to  have  fallen  asleep  on 


POLAND  REVISITED  147 

the  shores  of  England  and  opened  my  eyes,  if  it  were 
possible,  only  on  the  other  side  of  the  Silesian  frontier. 
Yet,  in  truth,  as  many  others  have  done,  I  had  "sensed 
it" — that  promised  land  of  steel,  of  chemical  dyes,  of 
method,  of  efficiency;  that  race  planted  in  the  middle 
of  Europe,  assuming  in  grotesque  vanity  the  attitude  of 
Europeans  amongst  effete  Asiatics  or  barbarous  niggers; 
and,  with  a  consciousness  of  superiority  freeing  their 
hands  from  all  moral  bonds,  anxious  to  take  up,  if  I  may 
express  myself  so,  the  "perfect  man's  burden."  Mean- 
time, in  a  clearing  of  the  Teutonic  forest,  their  sages 
were  rearing  a  Tree  of  Cynical  Wisdom,  a  sort  of  Upas 
tree,  whose  shade  may  be  seen  now  lying  over  the 
prostrate  body  of  Belgium.  It  must  be  said  that  they 
laboured  openly  enough,  w^atering  it  with  the  most 
authentic  sources  of  all  madness,  and  watching  with 
their  be-spectacled  eyes  the  slow  ripening  of  the  glorious 
blood-red  fruit.  The  sincerest  words  of  peace,  words 
of  menace,  and  I  verily  believe  words  of  abasement, 
even  if  there  had  been  a  voice  vile  enough  to  utter  them, 
would  have  been  wasted  on  their  ecstasy.  For  when 
the  fruit  ripens  on  a  branch  it  must  fall.  There  is 
nothing  on  earth  that  can  prevent  it. 

II 

For  reasons  which  at  first  seemed  to  me  somewhat 
obscure,  that  one  of  my  companions  whose  wishes  are 
law,  decided  that  our  travels  should  begm  in  an  unusual 
way  by  the  crossing  of  the  North  Sea.  We  should  pro- 
ceed from  Harwich  to  Hamburg.  Besides  being  36 
times  longer  than  the  Dover-Calais  passage  this  rather 
unusual  route  had  an  air  of  adventure  in  better  keeping 
with  the  romantic  feeling  of  this  Polish  journey  which 
for  so  many  years  had  been  before  us  in  a  state  of  a  pro- 


148        NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

ject  full  of  colour  and  promise,  but  always  retreating, 
elusive  like  an  enticing  mirage. 

And,  after  all,  it  had  turned  out  to  be  no  mirage. 
No  wonder  they  were  excited.  It's  no  mean  experience 
to  lay  your  hands  on  a  mirage.  The  day  of  departure 
had  come,  the  very  hour  had  struck.  The  luggage  was 
coming  downstairs.  It  was  most  convincing.  Poland 
then,  if  erased  from  the  map,  yet  existed  in  reality;  it 
was  not  a  mere  fays  du  reve,  where  you  can  travel 
only  in  imagination.  For  no  man,  they  argued,  not 
even  father,  an  habitual  pursuer  of  dreams,  would  push 
the  love  of  the  novelist's  art  of  make-believe  to  the 
point  of  burdening  himself  with  real  trunks  for  a  voy- 
age au  'pays  du  reve. 

As  we  left  the  door  of  our  house,  nestling  in,  perhaps, 
the  most  peaceful  nook  in  Kent,  the  sky,  after  weeks  of 
perfectly  brazen  serenity,  veiled  its  blue  depths  and 
started  to  weep  fine  tears  for  the  refreshment  of  the 
parched  fields.  A  pearly  blur  settled  over  them,  and  a 
light  sifted  of  all  glare,  of  everything  unkindly  and 
searching  that  dwells  in  the  splendour  of  unveiled  skies. 
All  unconscious  of  going  towards  the  very  scenes  of  war, 
I  carried  off  in  my  eye  this  tiny  fragment  of  Great 
Britain;  a  few  fields,  a  wooded  rise;  a  clump  of  trees  or 
two,  with  a  short  stretch  of  road,  and  here  and  there  a 
gleam  of  red  wall  and  tiled  roof  above  the  darkening 
hedges  wrapped  up  in  soft  mist  and  peace.  And  I 
felt  that  all  this  had  a  very  strong  hold  on  me  as  the 
embodiment  of  a  beneficent  and  gentle  spirit;  that  it  was 
dear  to  me  not  as  an  inheritance,  but  as  an  acquisition, 
as  a  conquest  in  the  sense  in  which  a  woman  is  con- 
quered— by  love,  which  is  a  sort  of  surrender. 

These  were  strange,  as  if  disproportionate  thoughts 
to  the  matter  in  hand,  which  was  the  simplest  sort  of 
a  Continental  holiday.    And  I  am  certain  that  my 


POLAND  REVISITED  149 

companions,  near  as  they  are  to  me,  felt  no  other 
trouble  but  the  suppressed  excitement  of  pleasurable 
anticipation.  The  forms  and  the  spirit  of  the  land 
before  their  eyes  were  their  inheritance,  not  their  con- 
quest— which  is  a  thing  precarious,  and,  therefore, 
the  most  precious,  possessing  you  if  only  by  the  fear 
of  un worthiness  rather  than  possessed  by  you.  More- 
over, as  we  sat  together  in  the  same  railway  carriage, 
they  were  looking  forward  to  a  voyage  in  space,  whereas 
I  felt  more  and  more  plainly  that  what  I  had  started  on 
was  a  journey  in  time,  into  the  past;  a  fearful  enough 
prospect  for  the  most  consistent,  but  to  him  who  had 
not  known  how  to  preserve  against  his  impulses  the 
order  and  continuity  of  his  life — so  that  at  times  it 
presented  itself  to  his  conscience  as  a  series  of  betrayals 
■ — still  more  dreadful. 

I  put  down  here  these  thoughts  so  exclusively  per^ 
sonal,  to  explain  why  there  was  no  room  in  my  conscious- 
ness for  the  apprehension  of  a  European  war.  I  don't 
mean  to  say  that  I  ignored  the  possibility;  I  simply  did 
not  think  of  it.  And  it  made  no  difference;  for  if  I  had 
thought  of  it,  it  could  only  have  been  in  the  lame  and 
inconclusive  way  of  the  common  uninitiated  mortals; 
and  I  am  sure  that  nothing  short  of  intellectual  certi- 
tude— obviously  unattainable  by  the  man  in  the  street 
— could  have  stayed  me  on  that  journey  which  now  that 
I  had  started  on  it  seemed  an  irrevocable  thing,  a  ne- 
cessity of  my  self-respect. 

London,  the  London  before  the  war,  flaunting  its 
enormous  glare,  as  of  a  monstrous  conflagration  up  into 
the  black  sky — with  its  best  Venice-like  aspect  of  rainy 
evenings,  the  wet  asphalted  streets  lying  with  the  sheen 
of  sleeping  water  in  winding  canals,  and  the  great  houses 
of  the  city  towering  all  dark  like  empty  palaces  above 
the  reflected  lights  of  the  ghstening  roadway. 


150       NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

r 

Everj'^thing  in  the  subdued  incomplete  night-life 
around  the  Mansion  House  went  on  normally  with  its 
fascinating  air  of  a  dead  commercial  city  of  sombre  walls 
through  which  the  inextinguishable  activity  of  its  mil- 
lions streamed  East  and  West  in  a  brilliant  flow  of 
lighted  vehicles. 

In  Liverpool  Street,  as  usual  too,  through  the  double 
gates,  a  continuous  line  of  taxi-cabs  glided  down  the  in- 
cline approach  and  up  again,  like  an  endless  chain  of 
dredger-buckets,  pouring  in  the  passengers,  and  dipping 
them  out  of  the  great  railway  station  under  the  inexor- 
able pallid  face  of  the  clock  telling  off  the  diminishing 
minutes  of  peace.  It  was  the  hour  of  the  boat-trains  to 
Holland,  to  Hamburg,  and  there  seemed  to  be  no  lack  of 
people,  fearless,  reckless,  or  ignorant,  who  wanted  to  go 
to  these  places.  The  station  was  normally  crowded,  and 
if  there  was  a  great  flutter  of  evening  papers  in  the 
multitude  of  hands,  there  were  no  signs  of  extraordinary 
emotion  on  that  multitude  of  faces.  There  was  nothing 
in  them  to  distract  me  from  the  thought  that  it  was  sin- 
gularly appropriate  that  I  should  start  from  this  station 
on  the  retraced  way  of  my  existence.  For  this  was  the 
station  at  which,  thirty-seven  years  before,  I  arrived  on 
my  first  visit  to  London.  Not  the  same  building,  but 
the  same  spot.  At  nineteen  years  of  age,  after  a  period 
of  probation  and  training  I  had  imposed  upon  myself  as 
ordinary  seaman  on  board  a  North  Sea  coaster,  I  had 
come  up  from  Lowestoft — my  first  long  railway  journey 
in  England — to  "sign  on"  for  an  Antipodean  voyage  in 
a  deep-water  ship.  Straight  from  a  railway  carriage  I 
had  walked  into  the  great  city  with  something  of  the 
feeling  of  a  traveller  penetrating  into  a  vast  and  unex- 
plored wilderness.  No  explorer  could  have  been  more 
lonely.  I  did  not  know  a  smgle  soul  of  all  these  millions 
that  all  around  me  peopled  the  mysterious  distances  of 


POLAND  REVISITED  151 

the  streets.  I  cannot  say  I  was  free  from  a  little  youth- 
ful awe,  but  at  that  age  one's  feelings  are  simple.  I  was 
elated.  I  was  pursuing  a  clear  aim,  I  was  carrying  out  a 
deliberate  plan  of  maldng  out  of  myself,  in  the  first  place, 
a  seaman  worthy  of  the  service,  good  enough  to  work 
by  the  side  of  the  men  with  whom  I  was  to  live;  and  in 
the  second  place,  I  had  to  justify  my  existence  to  myself, 
to  redeem  a  tacit  moral  pledge.  Both  these  aims  were 
to  be  attained  by  the  same  effort.  How  simple  seemed 
the  problem  of  life  then,  on  that  hazy  day  of  early 
September  in  the  year  1878,  when  I  entered  London  for 
the  first   time. 

From  that  point  of  view — Youth  and  a  straight- 
forward scheme  of  conduct — it  was  certainly  a  year  of 
grace.  All  the  help  I  had  to  get  in  touch  with  the  world 
I  was  invading  was  a  piece  of  paper  not  much  bigger 
than  the  palm  of  my  hand — m  which  I  held  it — torn  out 
of  a  larger  plan  of  London  for  the  greater  facility  of 
reference.  It  had  been  the  object  of  careful  study  for 
some  days  past.  The  fact  that  I  could  take  a  convey- 
ance at  the  station  never  occurred  to  my  mind,  no,  not 
even  when  I  got  out  into  tlie  street,  and  stood,  taking 
my  anxious  bearings,  in  the  midst,  so  to  speak,  of 
twenty  thousand  hansoms.  A  strange  absence  of 
mind  or  unconscious  conviction  that  one  cannot  ap- 
proach an  important  moment  of  one's  life  by  means  of 
a  hired  carriage.'^  Yes,  it  would  have  been  a  pre- 
posterous proceeding.  And  indeed  I  was  to  make  an 
Australian  voyage  and  encircle  the  globe  before  ever 
entering  a  London  hansom. 

Another  document,  a  cutting  from  a  newspaper,  con- 
taining the  address  of  an  obscure  shipping  agent,  was  in 
my  pocket.  And  I  needed  not  to  take  it  out.  That  ad- 
dress was  as  if  graven  deep  in  my  brain.  I  muttered  its 
words  to  myself  as  I  walked  on,  navigating  the  sea  of 


152       NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

London  by  the  chart  concealed  in  the  palm  of  my  hand ; 
for  I  had  vowed  to  myself  not  to  inquire  my  way  from 
any  one.  Youth  is  the  time  of  rash  pledges.  Had  I  taken 
a  wrong  turning  I  would  have  been  lost;  and  if  faith- 
ful to  my  pledge  I  might  have  remained  lost  for  days, 
for  weeks,  have  left  perhaps  my  bones  to  be  discovered 
bleaching  in  some  blind  alley  of  the  Whitechapel 
district,  as  it  had  happened  to  lonely  travellers  lost  in 
the  bush.  But  I  walked  on  to  my  destination  without 
hesitation  or  mistake,  showing  there,  for  the  first  time, 
some  of  that  faculty  to  absorb  and  make  my  owti 
the  imaged  topography  of  a  chart,  which  in  later  years 
was  to  help  me  in  regions  of  intricate  navigation  to 
keep  the  ships  entrusted  to  me  off  the  ground.  The 
place  I  was  bound  to  was  not  easy  to  find.  It  was 
one  of  those  courts  hidden  away  from  the  charted  and 
navigable  streets,'  lost  among  the  thick  growth  of 
houses  like  a  dark  pool  in  the  depths  of  a  forest,  ap- 
proached by  an  inconspicuous  archway  as  if  by  a  se- 
cret path;  a  Dickensian  nook  of  London,  that  wonder 
city,  the  growth  of  which  bears  no  sign  of  intelligent 
design,  but  many  traces  of  freakishly  sombre  phantasy 
the  Great  Master  knew  so  well  how  to  bring  out  by  the 
magic  of  his  understanding  love.  And  the  office  I  en- 
tered was  Dickensian  too.  The  dust  of  the  Waterloo 
year  lay  on  the  panes  and  frames  of  its  windows;  early 
Georgian  grime  clung  to  its  sombre  wainscoting. 

It  was  one  o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  but  the  day  was 
gloomy.  By  the  light  of  a  single  gas-jet  depending 
from  the  smoked  ceiling  I  saw  an  elderly  man,  in  a  long 
coat  of  black  broadcloth.  He  had  a  grey  beard,  a  big 
nose,  thick  lips,  and  heavy  shoulders.  His  curly 
white  hair  and  the  general  character  of  his  head  re- 
called vaguely  a  burly  apostle  in  the  harocco  style  of 
Italian  art.     Standing  up  at  a  tall,  shabby,  slanting 


POLAND  REVISITED  153 

desk,  his  silver-rimmed  spectacles  pushed  up  high  on  his 
forehead,  he  was  eating  a  mutton-chop,  which  had  been 
just  brought  to  him  from  some  Dickensian  eating-house 
round  the  corner. 

Without  ceasing  to  eat  he  turned  to  me  his  florid 
barocco  apostle's  face  with  an  expression  of  inquiry. 

I  produced  elaborately  a  series  of  vocal  sounds  which 
must  have  borne  sufficient  resemblance  to  the  phonetics 
of  English  speech,  for  his  face  broke  into  a  smile  of  com- 
prehension almost  at  once.  "Oh  it's  you  who  wrote  a 
letter  to  me  the  other  day  from  Lowestoft  about  getting 
a  ship." 

I  had  written  to  him  from  Lowestoft.  I  can't  remem- 
ber a  single  word  of  that  letter  now.  It  was  my  very 
first  composition  in  the  Enghsh  language.  And  he  had 
understood  it,  evidently,  for  he  spoke  to  the  point  at 
once,  explaining  that  his  business,  mainly,  was  to  find 
good  ships  for  young  gentlemen  who  wanted  to  go  to 
sea  as  premium  apprentices  with  a  view  of  being  trained 
for  officers.  But  he  gathered  that  this  was  not  my 
object.  I  did  not  desire  to  be  apprenticed.  Was  that 
the  case? 

It  was.  He  was  good  enough  to  say  then,  "Of  course 
I  see  that  you  are  a  gentleman.  But  your  wish  is  to  get 
a  berth  before  the  mast  as  an  Able  Seaman  if  possible. 
Is  that  it?" 

It  was  certainly  my  wish;  but  he  stated  doubtfully 
that  he  feared  he  could  not  help  me  much  in  this.  There 
was  an  Act  of  Parliament  which  made  it  penal  to  pro- 
cure ships  for  sailors.  "An  Act — of — Parliament.  A 
law,"  he  took  pains  to  impress  it  again  and  again  on  my 
foreign  imderstanding,  while  I  looked  at  him  in  con- 
sternation. 

I  had  not  been  half  an  hour  in  London  before  I  had 
run  my  head  against  an  Act  of  Parliament!    What  a 


154       NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

hopeless  adventure!  However,  the  barocco  apostle  was 
a  resourceful  person  in  his  way,  and  we  managed  to  get 
round  the  hard  letter  of  it  without  damage  to  its  fine 
Gpirit.  Yet,  strictly  speaking,  it  was  not  the  conduct 
of  a  good  citizen ;  and  in  retrospect  there  is  an  unfilial 
flavour  about  that  early  sin  of  mine.  For  this  Act  of 
Parliament,  the  Merchant  Shipping  Act  of  the  Victor- 
ian era,  had  been  in  a  manner  of  speaking  a  father  and 
mother  to  me.  For  many  years  it  had  regulated  and 
disciplined  my  Hfe,  prescribed  my  food  and  the  amount 
of  my  breathing  space,  had  looked  after  my  health  and 
tried  as  much  as  possible  to  secure  my  personal  safety 
in  a  risky  calling.  It  isn't  such  a  bad  thmg  to  lead  a 
life  of  hard  toil  and  plain  duty  within  the  four  comers 
of  an  honest  Act  of  Parliament.  And  I  am  glad  to  say 
that  its  severities  have  never  been  applied  to  me. 

In  the  year  1878,  the  year  of  "Peace  with  Honour,"  I 
had  walked  as  lone  as  any  human  being  in  the  streets 
of  London,  out  of  Liverpool  Street  Station,  to  surrender 
myself  to  its  care.  And  now,  in  the  year  of  the  war 
Waged  for  honour  and  conscience  more  than  for  any 
other  cause,  I  was  there  again,  no  longer  alone,  but  a 
man  of  infinitely  dear  and  close  ties  grown  since  that 
time,  of  work  done,  of  words  written,  of  friendships  se- 
cured.   It  was  like  the  closing  of  a  thirty -six-year  cycle. 

All  unaware  of  the  War  Angel  already  awaiting,  with 
the  trumpet  at  his  lips,  the  stroke  of  the  fatal  hour,  I  sat 
there,  thinking  that  this  life  of  ours  is  neither  long  nor 
short,  but  that  it  can  appear  very  wonderful,  entertain- 
ing, and  pathetic,  with  symbolic  images  and  bizarre 
associations  crowded  into  one  half -hour  of  retrospective 
musing. 

I  felt,  too,  that  this  journey,  so  suddenly  entered 
upon,  was  bound  to  take  me  away  from  daily  life's 
actualities  at  every  step.    I  felt  it  more  than  ever  when 


POLAND  RE\1SITED  155 

presently  we  steamed  out  into  the  North  Sea,  on  a  dark 
night  fitful  with  gusts  of  wind,  and  I  lingered  on  deck, 
alone  of  all  the  tale  of  the  ship's  passengers.  That  sea 
was  to  me  something  unforgettable,  something  much 
more  than  a  name.  It  had  been  for  some  time  the 
school-room  of  my  trade.  On  it,  I  may  safely  say,  I 
had  learned,  too,  my  first  words  of  English.  A  wild  and 
stormy  abode,  sometimes,  was  that  confined,  shallow- 
water  academy  of  seamanship  from  which  I  launched 
myself  on  the  wide  oceans.  My  teachers  had  been  the 
sailors  of  the  Norfolk  shore;  coast  men,  with  steady 
eyes,  mighty  limbs,  and  gentle  voice ;  men  of  very  few 
words,  which  at  least  were  never  bare  of  meaning. 
Honest,  strong,  steady  men,  sobered  by  domestic  ties, 
one  and  all,  as  far  as  I  can  remember. 

That  is  what  years  ago  the  North  Sea  I  could  hear 
growling  in  the  dark  all  round  the  ship  had  been  for  me. 
And  I  fancied  that  I  must  have  been  carrying  its  voice 
in  my  ear  ever  since,  for  nothing  could  be  more  familiar 
than  those  short,  angry  sounds  I  was  hstening  to  with  a 
smile  of  affectionate  recognition. 

I  could  not  guess  that  before  many  days  my  old 
school-room  would  be  desecrated  by  violence,  littered 
with  wrecks,  with  death  walking  its  waves,  hiding  un- 
der its  waters.  Perhaps  while  I  am  writing  these  words 
the  children,  or  maybe  the  grandchildren,  of  my  pacific 
teachers  are  out  in  trawlers,  under  the  Naval  flag, 
dredging  for  German  submarine  mines. 

ni 

I  have  said  that  the  North  Sea  was  my  finishing 
school  of  seamanship  before  I  launched  myself  on  the 
wider  oceans.  Confined  as  it  is  in  comparison  with  the 
vast  stage  of  this  water-girt  globe,  I  did  not  know  it  in 


156        NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

all  its  parts.  My  class-room  was  the  region  of  the 
English  East  Coast  which,  in  the  year  of  Peace  with 
Honour,  had  long  forgotten  the  war  episodes  belonging 
to  its  maritime  history.  It  was  a  peaceful  coast, 
agricultural,  industrial,  the  home  of  fishermen.  At 
night  the  lights  of  its  many  towns  played  on  the  clouds, 
or  in  clear  weather  lay  still,  here  and  there,  in  brilliant 
pools  above  the  ink-black  outline  of  the  land.  On 
many  a  night  I  have  hauled  at  the  braces  under  the 
shadow  of  that  coast,  envying,  as  sailors  will,  the  people 
on  the  shore  sleeping  quietly  in  their  beds  within  sound 
of  the  sea.  I  imagine  that  not  one  head  on  those  envied 
pillows  was  made  uneasy  by  the  slightest  premonition 
of  the  realities  of  naval  war  the  short  lifetime  of  one 
generation  was  to  bring  so  close  to  their  homes. 

Though  far  away  from  that  region  of  kindly  memories 
and  traversing  a  part  of  the  North  Sea  much  less  known 
to  me,  I  was  deeply  conscious  of  the  familiarity  of  my 
surroundings.  It  was  a  cloudy,  nasty  day:  an^d  the 
aspects  of  Nature  don't  change,  unless  in  the  course 
of  thousands  of  years — or,  perhaps,  centuries.  The 
Phoenicians,  its  first  discoverers,  the  Romans,  the  first 
imperial  rulers  of  that  sea,  had  experienced  days  like 
this,  so  different  in  the  wintry  quality  of  the  light,  even 
on  a  July  afternoon,  from  anything  they  had  ever 
known  in  their  native  Mediterranean.  For  myself,  a 
very  late  comer  into  that  sea,  and  its  former  pupil,  I 
accorded  amused  recognition  to  the  characteristic  aspect 
so  well  remembered  from  my  days  of  training.  The 
same  old  thing.  A  grey-green  expanse  of  smudgy 
waters  grinning  angrily  at  one  with  white  foam-ridges, 
and  over  all  a  cheerless,  unglowing  canopy,  apparently 
made  of  wet  blotting  paper.  From  time  to  time  a 
flurry  of  fine  rain  blew  along  like  a  puff  of  smoke  across 
the   dots   of   distant   fishing   boats,    very   few,    very 


POLAND  REVISITED  157 

scattered,  and  tossing  restlessly  on  an  ever  dissolving, 
ever  re-forming  sky-line. 

Those  flurries,  and  the  steady  rolling  of  the  ship, 
accounted  for  the  emptiness  of  the  decks,  favouring  my 
reminiscent  mood.  It  might  have  been  a  day  of  five 
and  thirty  years  ago,  when  there  were  on  this  and  every 
other  sea  more  sails  and  less  smoke-stacks  to  be  seen. 
Yet,  thanks  to  the  unchangeable  sea  I  could  have  given 
myself  up  to  the  illusion  of  a  revived  past,  had  it  not 
been  for  the  periodical  transit  across  my  gaze  of  a  Ger- 
man passenger.  He  was  marching  round  and  round 
the  boat  deck  with  characteristic  determination.  Two 
sturdy  boys  gambolled  round  him  in  his  progress  like 
two  disorderly  satellites  round  their  parent  planet.  He 
was  bringing  them  home  from  their  school  in  England 
for  their  hohday.  Wliat  could  have  induced  such 
a  sound  Teuton  to  entrust  his  offspring  to  the  un- 
healthy influences  of  that  efi'ete,  corrupt,  rotten  and 
criminal  country  I  cannot  imagine.  It  could  hardly 
have  been  from  motives  of  economy.  I  did  not  speak 
to  him.  He  trod  the  deck  of  that  decadent  British 
ship  with  a  scornful  foot  while  his  breast  (and  to  a  large 
extent  his  stomach,  too)  appeared  expanded  by  the 
consciousness  of  a  superior  destiny.  Later  I  could  ob- 
serve the  same  truculent  bearing,  touched  with  the 
racial  grotesqueness,  in  the  men  of  the  Landwehr  corps, 
that  passed  through  Cracow  to  reinforce  the  Aus- 
trian army  in  Eastern  Galicia.  Indeed,  the  haughty 
passenger  might  very  wxll  have  been,  most  probably 
was,  an  officer  of  the  Landwehr;  and  perhaps  those  two 
fine  active  boys  are  orphans  by  now.  Thus  things 
acquire  significance  by  the  lapse  of  time.  A  citizen,  a 
father,  a  warrior,  a  mote  in  the  dust-cloud  of  six  mil- 
lion fighting  particles,  an  unconsidered  trifle  for  the 
jaws  of  war,  his  humanity  was  not  consciously  im- 


158       NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

pressed  on  my  mind  at  the  time.  Mainly,  for  me, 
he  was  a  sharp  tapping  of  heels  round  the  comer  of  the 
deck-house,  a  white  yachting  cap  and  a  green  overcoat 
getting  periodically  between  my  eyes  and  the  shifting 
cloud-horizon  of  the  ashy-grey  North  Sea.  He  was 
but  a  shadowy  intrusion  and  a  disregarded  one,  for,  far 
away  there  to  the  West,  in  the  direction  of  the  Dogger 
Bank,  where  fishermen  go  seeking  their  daily  bread  and 
sometimes  find  their  graves,  I  could  behold  an  ex- 
perience of  my  own  in  the  winter  of  '81,  not  of  war, 
truly,  but  of  a  fairly  lively  contest  with  the  elements 
which  were  very  angry  indeed. 

There  had  been  a  troublesome  week  of  it,  including 
one  hateful  night — or  a  night  of  hate  (it  isn't  for  nothing 
that  the  North  Sea  is  also  called  the  German  Ocean) — 
when  all  the  fury  stored  in  its  heart  seemed  concen- 
trated on  one  ship  which  could  do  no  better  than 
float  on  her  side  in  an  unnatural,  disagreeable,  pre- 
carious, and  altogether  intolerable  manner.  There 
were  on  board,  besides  myself,  seventeen  men  all  good 
and  true,  including  a  round  enormous  Dutchman  who, 
in  those  hours  between  sunset  and  sunrise,  managed  to 
lose  his  blown-out  appearance  somehow,  became  as  it 
were  deflated,  and  thereafter  for  a  good  long  time  moved 
in  our  midst  wrinkled  and  slack  all  over  like  a  half- 
collapsed  balloon.  The  whimpering  of  our  deck-boy,  a 
skinny,  impressionable  little  scarecrow  out  of  a  training- 
ship,  for  whom,  because  of  the  tender  immaturity  of  his 
nerves,  this  display  of  German  Ocean  f rightfulness  was 
too  much  (before  the  year  was  out  he  developed  into  a 
sufiiciently  cheeky  young  ruflBan),  his  desolate  whimper- 
ing, I  say,  heard  between  the  gusts  of  that  black,  sav- 
age night,  was  much  more  present  to  my  mind  and 
indeed  to  my  senses  than  the  green  overcoat  and 
the  white  cap  of  the  German  passenger  circling  the 


POLAND  REVISITED  159 

deck  indefatigably,  attended  by  his  two  gyrating  chil- 
dren. 

*' That's  a  very  nice  gentleman."  This  information, 
together  with  the  fact  that  he  was  a  widower  and  a 
regular  passenger  twice  a  year  by  the  ship,  was  com- 
municated to  me  suddenly  by  our  captain.  At  inter- 
vals through  the  day  he  would  pop  out  of  the  chart - 
room  and  offer  me  short  snatches  of  conversation.  He 
OTMied  a  simple  soul  and  a  not  very  entertaining  mind, 
and  he  was  without  malice  and,  I  believe,  quite  un- 
consciously, a  warm  Germanophil.  And  no  wonder! 
As  he  told  me  himself,  he  had  been  fifteen  years  on  that 
run,  and  spent  almost  as  much  of  his  life  in  Hamburg 
as  in  Harwich. 

"Wonderful  people  they  are,"  he  repeated  from  time 
to  time,  without  entermg  into  particulars,  but  with 
many  nods  of  sagacious  obstinacy.  '\^liat  he  knew  of 
them,  I  suppose,  were  a  few  commercial  travellers  and 
small  merchants,  most  likely.  But  I  had  observed 
long  before  that  German  genius  has  a  hypnotising 
power  over  half-baked  souls  and  half-lighted  minds. 
There  is  an  immense  force  of  suggestion  in  highlj^ 
organised  mediocrity.  Had  it  not  hypnotised  half 
Europe?  My  man  was  very  much  under  the  spell  of 
German  excellence.  On  the  other  hand,  his  contempt 
for  France  was  equally  general  and  unbounded.  I 
tried  to  advance  some  arguments  against  this  position, 
but  I  only  succeeded  in  making  him  hostile.  "I  beheve 
you  are  a  Frenchman  yourself,"  he  snarled  at  last,  giving 
me  an  intensely  suspicious  look;  and  forthwith  broke  off 
communications  with  a  man  of  such  unsound  sympathies. 

Hour  by  hour  the  blotting-paper  sky  and  the  great 
flat  greenish  smudge  of  the  sea  had  been  taking  on  a 
darker  tone,  without  any  change  in  their  colouring  and 
texture.     Evening  was  coming  on  over  the  North  Sea. 


160        NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

Black  uninteresting  hummocks  of  land  appeared,  dot- 
ting the  duskiness  of  water  and  clouds  in  tlie  Eastern 
board :  tops  of  islands  fringing  the  German  shore.  While 
I  was  looking  at  their  antics  amongst  the  waves — and 
for  all  their  solidity  they  were  very  elusive  things  in  the 
failing  hght — another  passenger  came  out  on  deck. 
This  one  wore  a  dark  overcoat  and  a  grey  cap.  The 
yellow  leather  strap  of  his  binocular  case  crossed  his 
chest.  His  elderly  red  cheeks  nourished  but  a  very 
thin  crop  of  short  white  hairs,  and  the  end  of  his  nose 
was  so  perfectly  round  that  it  determined  the  whole  char- 
acter of  his  physiognomy.  Indeed  nothing  else  in  it  had 
the  slightest  chance  to  assert  itself.  His  disposition, 
unlike  the  widower's,  appeared  to  be  mild  and  humane. 
He  offered  me  the  loan  of  his  glasses.  He  had  a  wife 
and  some  small  children  concealed  in  the  depths  of  the 
ship,  and  he  thought  they  were  very  well  where  they 
were.     His  eldest  son  was  about  the  decks  somewhere. 

"We  are  Americans,"  he  remarked  weightily,  but  in 
a  rather  peculiar  tone.  He  spoke  English  with  the 
accent  of  our  captain's  "wonderful  people,"  and  pro- 
ceeded to  give  me  the  history  of  the  family's  crossing 
the  Atlantic  in  a  lATiite  Star  liner.  They  remained  in 
England  just  the  time  necessary  for  a  railway  journey 
from  Liverpool  to  Harwich.  His  people  (those  in  the 
depths  of  the  ship)  were  naturally  a  little  tired. 

At  that  moment  a  young  man  of  about  twenty,  his 
son,  rushed  up  to  us  from  the  fore-deck  in  a  state  of 
intense  elation.  "Hurrah,"  he  cried  under  his  breath. 
"The  first  German  light!     Hurrah!" 

And  those  two  American  citizens  shook  hands  on  it 
with  the  greatest  fervour,  while  I  turned  away  and  re- 
ceived full  in  the  eyes  the  brilliant  wink  of  the  Borkum 
lighthouse  squatting  low  down  in  the  darkness.  The 
shade  of  the  night  had  settled  on  the  North  Sea. 


POLAND  REVISITED  161 

I  do  not  think  I  have  ever  seen  before  a  night  so  full 
of  Hghts.  The  great  change  of  sea  hfe  since  my  time 
was  brought  home  to  me.  I  had  been  conscious  all  day 
of  an  interminable  procession  of  steamers.  They  went 
on  and  on  as  if  in  chase  of  each  other,  the  Baltic  trade, 
the  trade  of  Scandinavia,  of  Denmark,  of  Germany, 
pitching  heavily  into  a  head  sea  and  bound  for  the 
gateway  of  Dover  Straits.  Singly,  and  in  small  com- 
panies of  two  and  three,  they  emerged  from  the  dull, 
colourless,  sunless  distances  ahead  as  if  the  supply  of 
rather  roughly  finished  mechanical  toys  were  inexhaus- 
tible in  some  mysterious  cheap  store  away  there,  below 
the  grey  curve  of  the  earth.  Cargo  steam  vessels  have 
reached  by  this  time  a  height  of  utilitarian  ugliness 
which,  when  one  reflects  that  it  is  the  product  of  hu- 
man ingenuity,  strikes  hopeless  awe  into  one.  These 
dismal  creations  look  still  uglier  at  sea  than  in  port,  and 
with  an  added  touch  of  the  ridiculous.  Their  rolhng 
waddle  when  seen  at  a  certain  angle,  their  abrupt  clock- 
work nodding  in  a  sea-way,  so  unlike  the  soaring  lift 
and  swing  of  a  craft  under  sail,  have  in  them  something 
caricatural,  a  suggestion  of  a  low  parody  directed  at 
noble  predecessors  by  an  improved  generation  of  dull, 
mechanical  toilers,  conceited  and  without  grace. 

When  they  switched  on  their  lamps  (each  of  these 
unlovely  cargo  tanks  carried  tame  lightning  within  its 
slab-sided  body),  they  spangled  the  night  with  the 
cheap,  electric,  shop-glitter,  here,  there,  and  everywhere, 
as  of  some  High  Street,  broken  up  and  washed  out  to 
sea.  Later,  Heligoland  cut  into  the  overhead  dark- 
ness with  its  powerful  beam,  infinitely  prolonged  out 
of  unfathomable  night  under  the  clouds. 

I  remained  on  deck  until  we  stopped  and  a  steam 
pilot-boat,  so  overlighted  amidships  that  one  could  not 
make  out  her  complete  shape,  glided  across  our  bows 


162        NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

and  sent  a  pilot  on  board.  I  fear  that  the  oar,  as  a 
working  implement,  v/ill  become  presently  as  obsolete 
as  the  sail.  The  pilot  boarded  us  in  a  motor-dinghy. 
More  and  more  is  mankind  reducing  its  physical  activi- 
ties to  pulling  levers  and  twirlmg  little  wheels.  Prog- 
ress !  Yet  the  older  methods  of  meeting  natural  forces 
demanded  intelligence  too;  an  equally  fine  readiness  of 
wits.  And  readiness  of  wits  working  in  combination 
with  the  strength  of  muscles  made  a  more  complete 
man. 

It  was  really  a  surprisingly  small  dinghy  and  it  ran 
to  and  fro  like  a  water-insect  fussing  noisily  down  there 
with  immense  self-importance.  Within  hail  of  us  the 
hull  of  the  Elbe  lightship  floated  all  dark  and  silent 
under  its  enormous  round,  service  lantern;  a  faithful 
black  shadow  watching  the  broad  estuary  full  of  lights. 

Such  was  my  first  view  of  the  Elbe  approached  under 
the  wings  of  peace  ready  for  flight  away  from  the  luck- 
less shores  of  Europe.  Our  visual  impressions  remain 
with  us  so  persistently  that  I  find  it  extremely  difficult  to 
hold  fast  to  the  rational  belief  that  now  everything  is 
dark  over  there,  that  the  Elbe  lightship  has  been  towed 
away  from  its  post  of  duty,  the  triumphant  beam  of 
Heligoland  extinguished,  and  the  pilot-boat  laid  up,  or 
turned  to  warlike  uses  for  lack  of  its  proper  work  to 
do.     And  obviously  it  must  be  so. 

Any  trickle  of  oversea  trade  that  passes  yet  that  way 
must  be  creeping  along  cautiously  with  the  unlighted, 
war-blighted  black  coast  close  on  one  hand,  and  sudden 
death  on  the  other  hand.  For  all  the  space  we  steamed 
through  that  Sunday  evening  must  now  be  one  great 
minefield,  sown  thickly  with  the  seeds  of  hate;  while 
submarines  steal  out  to  sea,  over  the  very  spot  perhaps 
where  the  insect-dinghy  put  a  pilot  on  board  of  us  with 
so  much  fussy  importance.    Mines :    Submarines.    The 


POLAND  REVISITED  163 

last  word  In  sea-warfare!  Progress — impressively  dis- 
closed by  this  war. 

There  have  been  other  wars!  Wars  not  inferior  in 
the  greatness  of  the  stake  and  in  the  fierce  animosity  of 
feehngs.  During  that  one  which  was  finished  a  hundred 
years  ago  it  happened  that  while  the  Enghsh  Fleet  was 
keeping  watch  on  Brest,  an  American,  perhaps  Fulton 
himself,  offered  to  the  Maritime  Prefect  of  the  port  and 
to  the  French  Admiral,  an  invention  which  would  sink 
all  the  unsuspecting  English  ships  one  after  another — 
or,  at  any  rate  most  of  them.  The  offer  was  not  even 
taken  into  consideration;  and  the  Prefect  ends  his  re- 
port to  the  Minister  in  Paris  with  a  fine  phrase  of 
indignation:  "It  is  not  the  sort  of  death  one  would 
deal  to  brave  men." 

And  behold,  before  history  had  time  to  hatch  another 
war  of  the  like  proportions  in  the  intensity  of  aroused 
passions  and  the  greatness  of  issues,  the  dead  flavour 
of  archaism  descended  on  the  manly  sentiment  of  those 
self-denying  words.  Mankind  has  been  demoralised 
since  by  its  own  mastery  of  mechanical  appliances. 
Its  spirit  is  apparently  so  weak  now,  and  its  flesh  has 
grown  so  strong,  that  it  will  face  any  deadly  horror  of 
destruction  and  cannot  resist  the  temptation  to  use  any 
stealthy,  murderous  contrivance.  It  has  become  the 
intoxicated  slave  of  its  own  detestable  ingenuity.  It 
is  true,  too,  that  since  the  Napoleonic  time  another  sort 
of  war-doctrine  has  been  inculcated  in  a  nation,  and 
held  out  to  the  world. 

IV 

On  this  journey  of  ours,  which  for  me  was  essentially 
not  a  progress,  but  a  retracing  of  footsteps  on  the 
road   of  life,   I  had   no  beacons  to  look  for  in  Ger- 


164        NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

many.  I  had  never  lingered  in  that  land  which,  on  the 
whole,  is  so  singularly  barren  of  memorable  manifesta- 
tions of  generous  sympathies  and  magnanimous  im- 
pulses. An  ineradicable,  invincible,  provincialism  of 
envy  and  vanity  clings  to  the  forms  of  its  thought 
like  a  frowsy  garment.  Even  while  yet  very  young  I 
turned  my  eyes  away  from  it  instinctively  as  from  a 
threatening  phantom.  I  believe  that  children  and 
dogs  have,  in  their  innocence,  a  special  power  of  per- 
ception as  far  as  spectral  apparitions  and  coming  mis- 
fortunes are  concerned. 

I  let  myself  be  carried  through  Germany  as  if  it  were 
pure  space,  without  sights,  without  sounds.  No  whis- 
pers of  the  war  reached  my  voluntary  abstraction.  And 
perhaps  not  so  very  voluntary  after  all !  Each  of  us  is  a 
fascinating  spectacle  to  himself,  and  I  had  to  watch  my 
own  personality  returning  from  another  world,  as  it  were, 
to  revisit  the  glimpses  of  old  moons.  Considering  the 
condition  of  humanity,  I  am,  perhaps,  not  so  much 
to  blame  for  giving  myself  up  to  that  occupation.  We 
prize  the  sensation  of  our  continuity,  and  we  can  only 
capture  it  in  that  way.     By  watching. 

We  arrived  in  Cracow  late  at  night.  After  a  scram- 
bly  supper,  I  said  to  my  eldest  boy,  "I  can't  go  to  bed. 
I  am  going  out  for  a  look  round.     Coming.'^" 

He  was  ready  enough.  For  him,  all  this  was  part  of 
the  interesting  adventure  of  the  whole  journey.  We 
stepped  out  of  the  portal  of  the  hotel  into  an  empty 
street,  very  silent,  and  bright  with  moonlight.  I  was, 
indeed,  revisiting  the  glimpses  of  the  moon.  I  felt  so 
much  like  a  ghost  that  the  discovery  that  I  could  re- 
member such  material  things  as  the  right  turn  to  take 
and  the  general  direction  of  the  street  gave  me  a  mo- 
ment of  wistful  surprise. 

The  street,  straight  and  narrow,  ran  into  the  great 


POLAND  REVISITED  '165 

Market  Square  of  the  towm,  the  centre  of  its  affairs  and 
of  the  hghter  side  of  its  hfe.  We  could  see  at  the  far  end 
of  the  street  a  promising  widening  of  space.  At  the 
corner  an  unassuming  (but  armed)  pohceman,  wearing 
ceremoniously  at  midnight  a  pair  of  white  gloves  which 
made  his  big  hands  extremely  noticeable,  turned  his 
head  to  look  at  the  grizzled  foreigner  holding  forth 
in  a  strange  tongue  to  a  youth  on  whose  arm  he  leaned. 

The  Square,  immense  in  its  solitude,  was  full  to  the 
brim  of  moonlight.  The  garland  of  lights  at  the  foot  of 
the  houses  seemed  to  burn  at  the  bottom  of  a  bluish  pool. 
I  noticed  with  infinite  satisfaction  that  the  unnecessary 
trees  the  Municipality  insisted  upon  sticking  between 
the  stones  had  been  steadily  refusing  to  grow.  They 
were  not  a  bit  bigger  than  the  poor  victims  I  could  re- 
member. Also,  the  paving  operations  seemed  to  be 
exactly  at  the  same  point  at  which  I  left  them  forty 
years  before.  There  were  the  dull,  torn-up  patches  oil 
that  bright  expanse,  the  piles  of  paving  material  look- 
ing ominously  black,  like  heads  of  rocks  on  a  silvery  sea. 
"Who  was  it  that  said  that  Time  works  wonders  .f^  Wliat 
an  exploded  superstition!  As  far  as  these  trees  and 
these  paving  stones  were  concerned,  it  had  worked  noth- 
ing. The  suspicion  of  the  unchangeableness  of  things 
already  vaguely  suggested  to  my  senses  by  our  rapid 
drive  from  the  railway  station,  was  agreeably  strength- 
ened within  me. 

"We  are  now  on  the  line  A.  B.,"  I  said  to  my  com- 
panion, importantly. 

It  was  the  name  bestowed  in  my  time  on  one  of  the 
sides  of  the  Square  by  the  senior  students  of  that  town 
of  classical  learning  and  historical  relics.  The  com- 
mon citizens  knew  nothing  of  it,  and,  even  if  they  had, 
would  not  have  dreamed  of  taking  it  seriously.  He 
who  used  it  was  of  the  initiated,  belonged  to  the  schools, 


166        NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

We  youngsters  regarded  tliat  name  as  a  fine  jest,  the 
invention  of  a  most  excellent  fancy.  Even  as  I  uttered 
it  to  my  boy  I  experienced  again  that  sense  of  my 
privileged  initiation.  And  then,  happening  to  look 
up  at  the  wall,  I  saw  in  the  light  of  the  corner  lamp, 
a  white,  cast-iron  tablet  fixed  thereon,  bearing  an  in- 
scription in  raised  black  letters,  thus:  "Line  A.  B.'* 
Heavens !  The  name  had  been  adopted  officially !  Any 
towTi  urchin,  any  gutter-snipe,  any  herb-selling  woman 
of  the  market-place,  any  wandering  Boeotian,  was  free  to 
talk  of  the  line  A.  B.,  to  walk  on  the  line  A.  B,,  to 
appoint  to  meet  his  friends  on  the  line  A.  B.  It  had 
become  a  mere  name  in  a  directory.  I  was  stunned  by 
the  extreme  mutability  of  things.  Time  could  work 
wonders,  and  no  mistake.  A  Municipality  had  stolen 
an  invention  of  excellent  fancy,  and  a  fine  jest  had 
turned  into  a  horrid  piece  of  cast-iron.  • 

I  proposed  that  we  should  walk  to  the  other  end  of 
the  line,  using  the  profaned  name,  not  only  without  gusto, 
but  with  positive  distaste.  And  this,  too,  was  one  of 
the  wonders  of  Time,  for  a  bare  minute  had  worked  that 
change.  There  was  at  the  end  of  the  line  a  certain 
street  I  wanted  to  look  at,  I  explained  to  my  com- 
panion. 

To  our  right  the  unequal  massive  towers  of  St.  Mary's 
Church  soared  aloft  into  the  ethereal  radiance  of  the  air, 
very  black  on  their  shaded  sides,  glowing  with  a  soft 
phosphorescent  sheen  on  the  others.  In  the  distance 
the  Florian  Gate,  thick  and  squat  under  its  pointed 
roof,  barred  the  street  with  the  square  shoulders  of  the 
old  city  wall.  In  the  narrow,  brilliantly  pale  vista  of 
bluish  flagstones  and  silvery  fronts  of  houses,  its  black 
archway  stood  out  small  and  very  distinct. 

There  was  not  a  soul  in  sight,  and  not  even  the  echo  of 
a  footstep  for  our  ears.     Into  this  coldly  illuminated 


POLAND  REVISITED  167 

and  dumb  emptiness  there  issued  out  of  my  aroused 
memory,  a  small  boy  of  eleven,  wending  his  way,  not 
very  fast,  to  a  preparatory  school  for  day -pupils  on  the 
second  floor  of  the  third  house  down  from  the  Florian 
Gate.  It  was  in  the  winter  months  of  1868.  At  eight 
o'clock  of  every  morning  that  God  made,  sleet  or  shine, 
I  walked  up  Florian  Street.  But  of  the  school  I 
remember  very  little.  I  believe  that  one  of  my  co- 
sufferers  there  has  become  a  much  appreciated  editor  of 
historical  documents.  But  I  didn't  suffer  much  from 
the  various  imperfections  of  my  first  school.  I  was  rather 
indifferent  to  school  troubles.  I  had  a  private  gnawing 
worm  of  my  own.  This  was  the  time  of  my  father's 
last  illness.  Every  evening  at  seven,  turning  my  back 
on  the  Florian  Gate,  I  walked  all  the  way  to  a  big  old 
house  in  a  quiet  narrow  street  a  good  distance  beyond  the 
Great  Square.  There,  in  a  large  drawing-room,  pan- 
elled and  bare,  with  hea^^  cornices  and  a  lofty  ceiling, 
in  a  little  oasis  of  light  made  by  two  candles  in  a  des- 
ert of  dusk  I  sat  at  a  little  table  to  worry  and  ink  myself 
all  over  till  the  task  of  my  preparation  was  done.  The 
table  of  my  toil  faced  a  tall  white  door,  which  was  kept 
closed;  now  and  then  it  would  come  ajar  and  a  nun  in 
a  white  coif  would  squeeze  herself  through  the  crack, 
glide  across  the  room,  and  disappear.  There  were  two  of 
these  noiseless  nursing  nuns.  Their  voices  were  seldom 
heard.  For,  indeed,  what  could  they  have  had  to  say.^^ 
^^^len  they  did  speak  to  me  it  was  with  their  lips  hardly 
moving,  in  a  claustral  clear  whisper.  Our  domestic 
matters  were  ordered  by  the  elderly  housekeeper  of  our 
neighbour  on  the  second  floor,  a  Canon  of  the  Cathe- 
dral, lent  for  the  enernency.  She,  too,  spoke  but  sel- 
dom. She  wore  a  black  dress  with  a  cross  hanging  by 
a  chain  on  her  ample  bosom.  And  though  when  she 
spoke  she  moved  her  lips  more  than  tlie  nuns,  she  never 


168       NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

let  her  voice  rise  above  a  peacefully  murmuring  note. 
The  air  around  me  was  all  piety,  resignation,  and 
silence. 

I  don't  know  what  would  have  become  of  me  if  I  had 
not  been  a  reading  boy.  My  prep  finished  I  would  have 
had  nothing  to  do  but  sit  and  watch  the  awful  stillness 
of  the  sick  room  flow  out  through  the  closed  door  and 
coldly  enfold  my  scared  heart.  I  suppose  that  in  a 
futile  childish  way  I  would  have  gone  crazy.  But  I  was 
a  reading  boy.  There  were  many  books  about,  lying 
on  consoles,  on  tables,  and  even  on  the  floor,  for  we  had 
not  had  time  to  settle  down.  I  read !  \Miat  did  I  not 
read !  Sometimes  the  elder  nun,  gliding  up  and  casting 
a  mistrustful  look  on  the  open  pages,  would  lay  her  hand 
lightly  on  my  head  and  suggest  in  a  doubtful  whisper, 
"Perhaps  it  is  not  very  good  for  you  to  read  these 
books."  I  would  raise  my  eyes  to  her  face  mutely,  and 
with  a  vague  gesture  of  giving  it  up  she  would  glide 
away. 

Later  in  the  evening,  but  not  always,  I  v/ould  be  per- 
mitted to  tip-toe  into  the  sick  room  to  say  good-night  to 
the  figure  prone  on  the  bed,  v/hich  often  could  not 
acknowledge  my  presence  but  by  a  slow  movement  of 
the  eyes,  put  my  lips  dutifully  to  the  nerveless  hand 
lying  on  the  coverlet,  and  tip-toe  out  again.  Then  I 
would  go  to  bed,  in  a  room  at  the  end  of  the  corridor, 
and  often,  not  always,  cry  myself  into  a  good  sound 
sleep. 

I  looked  forward  to  what  was  coming  with  an  in- 
credulous terror.  I  turned  my  eyes  from  it  sometimes 
with  success,  and  vet  all  the  time  I  had  an  awful  sensa- 
tion  of  the  inevitable.  I  had  also  moments  of  revolt 
which  stripped  off  me  some  of  my  simple  trust  in  the 
government  of  the  universe.  But  when  the  inevitable 
entered  the  sick  room  and  the  white  door  was  thrown 


POLAND  REVISITED  169 

wide  open,  I  don't  think  I  found  a  single  tear  to  shed.  I 
have  a  suspicion  that  the  Canon's  housekeeper  looked 
on  me  as  the  most  callous  little  wretch  on  earth. 

The  day  of  the  funeral  came  m  due  course  and  all  the 
generous  "Youth  of  the  Schools,"  the  grave  Senate  of 
the  University,  the  delegations  of  the  Trade-guilds, 
might  have  obtained  (if  they  cared)  de  visu  evidence  of 
the  callousness  of  the  little  wretch.  There  was  nothing 
in  my  aching  head  but  a  few  words,  some  such  stupid 
sentences  as,  "It's  done,"  or,  "It's  accomplished"  (in 
PoHsh  it  is  much  shorter),  or  something  of  the  sort, 
repeating  itself  endlessly.  The  long  procession  moved 
out  of  the  narrow  street,  down  a  long  street,  past  the 
Gothic  front  of  St.  Mary's  under  its  unequal  towers, 
towards  the  Florian  Gate. 

In  the  moonlight-flooded  silence  of  the  old  town  of 
glorious  tombs  and  tragic  memories,  I  could  see  again 
the  small  boy  of  that  day  following  a  hearse;  a  space 
kept  clear  in  which  I  walked  alone,  conscious  of  an 
enormous  following,  the  clumsy  swaying  of  the  tall 
black  machine,  the  chanting  of  the  surpliced  clergy  at 
the  head,  the  flames  of  tapers  passing  under  the  low 
archway  of  the  gate,  the  rows  of  bared  heads  on  the 
pavements  with  fixed,  serious  eyes.  Half  the  popula- 
tion had  turned  out  on  that  fine  May  afternoon.  They 
had  not  come  to  honour  a  great  achievement,  or  even 
some  splendid  failure.  The  dead  and  they  were  victims 
alike  of  an  unrelenting  destiny  which  cut  them  ofi  from 
every  path  of  merit  and  glory.  They  had  come  only  to 
render  homage  to  the  ardent  fidelity  of  the  man  whose 
Hfe  had  been  a  fearless  confession  in  word  and  deed  of  a 
creed  which  the  simplest  heart  in  that  crowd  could  feel 
and  understand. 

It  seemed  to  me  that  if  I  remained  longer  there  in 
that  narrow  street  I  should  become  the  helpless  prey  of 


170       NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

the  Shadows  I  had  called  up.  They  were  crowding 
upon  me,  enigmatic  and  insistent,  in  their  clinging  air 
ot  the  grave  that  tasted  of  dust  and  of  the  bitter  vanity 
of  old  hopes. 

"Let's  go  back  to  the  hotel,  my  boy,"  I  said.  "It's 
getting  late." 

It  will  be  easily  understood  that  I  neither  thought  nor 
dreamt  that  night  of  a  possible  war.  For  the  next  two 
days  I  went  about  amongst  my  fellow  men,  who  wel- 
comed me  with  the  utmost  consideration  and  friendli- 
ness, but  unanimously  derided  my  fears  of  a  war.  They 
would  not  believe  in  it.  It  was  impossible.  On  the 
evening  of  the  second  day  I  was  in  the  hotel's  smoking 
room,  an  irrationally  private  apartment,  a  sanctuary 
for  a  few  choice  minds  of  the  town,  always  pervaded  by 
a  dim  rehgious  light,  and  more  hushed  than  any  club 
reading-room  I've  ever  been  in.  Gathered  into  a  small 
knot,  we  were  discussing  the  situation  in  subdued  tones 
suitable  to  the  genius  of  the  place. 

A  gentleman  with  a  fine  head  of  white  hair  suddenly 
pointed  an  impatient  finger  in  my  direction  and  apos- 
trophised me. 

"What  I  want  to  know  is  whether,  should  there  be 
war,  England  would  come  in." 

The  time  to  draw  a  breath,  and  I  spoke  out  for  the 
Cabinet  without  faltering. 

"Most  assuredly.  I  should  think  all  Europe  knows 
that  by  this  time." 

He  took  hold  of  the  lapel  of  my  coat,  and,  giving  it  a 
slight  jerk  for  greater  emphasis,  said  forcibly: 

"Then,  if  England  will,  as  you  say,  and  all  the  world 
knows  it,  there  can  be  no  war.  Germany  won't  be  so 
mad  as  that." 

On  the  morrow  by  noon  we  read  of  the  German 
ultimatum.    The  day  after  came  the  declaration  of 


POLAND  REVISITED  171 

war,  and  the  Austrian  mobilization  order.  We  were 
fairly  caught.  All  that  remained  for  me  to  do  was  to 
get  my  party  out  of  the  way  of  eventual  shells.  The 
best  move  which  occurred  to  me  was  to  snatch  them  up 
instantly  into  the  mountains  to  a  Polish  health  resort  of 
great  repute — which  I  did  (at  the  rate  of  one  hundred 
miles  in  eleven  hours)  by  the  last  civilian  train  per- 
mitted to  leave  Cracow  for  the  next  three  weeks. 

And  there  we  remained  amongst  the  Poles  from  all 
parts  of  Poland,  not  officially  interned,  but  simply  un- 
able to  obtain  the  permission  to  travel  by  train,  or  road. 
It  was  a  wonderful,  a  poignant  two  months.  This  is 
not  the  time,  and,  perhaps,  not  the  place,  to  enlarge 
upon  the  tragic  character  of  the  situation;  a  whole 
people  seeing  the  culmination  of  its  misfortunes  in  a 
final  catastrophe,  unable  to  trust  any  one,  to  appeal  to 
any  one,  to  look  for  help  from  any  quarter;  deprived  of 
all  hope  and  even  of  its  last  illusions,  and  unable,  in  the 
trouble  of  minds  and  the  unrest  of  consciences,  to  take 
refuge  in  stoical  acceptance.  I  have  seen  all  this.  And 
1  am  glad  I  have  not  so  many  years  left  me  to  remember 
that  appalling  feeling  of  inexorable  fate,  tangible, 
palpable,  come  after  so  many  cruel  years,  a  figure  of 
dread,  murmuring  with  iron  lips  the  final  words :  Ruin — 
and  Extinction. 

But  enough  of  this.  For  our  little  band  there  was 
the  awful  anguish  of  incertitude  as  to  the  real  nature  of 
events  in  the  West.  It  is  difficult  to  give  an  idea  how 
ugly  and  dangerous  things  looked  to  us  over  there. 
Belgium  knocked  down  and  trampled  out  of  existence, 
France  giving  in  under  repeated  blows,  a  military 
collapse  like  that  of  1870,  and  England  involved  in  that 
disastrous  alliance,  her  army  sacrificed,  her  people  in  a 
panic!  Polish  papers,  of  course,  had  no  other  but 
Geiman  sources  of  information.     Naturally  we  did  not 


172        NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

believe  all  we  read,  but  It  was  sometimes  excessively 
difficult  to  react  with  suflScient  firmness.  We  used  to 
shut  our  door,  and  there,  away  from  everybody,  we  sat 
weigliing  the  news,  hunting  up  discrepancies,  scenting 
lies,  finding  reasons  for  hopefulness,  and  generally 
cheering  each  other  up.  But  it  was  a  beastly  time. 
People  used  to  come  to  me  with  very  serious  news  and 
ask,  "What  do  you  think  of  it.'^"  And  my  invariable 
answer  was,  "Whatever  has  happened,  or  is  going  to 
happen,  whoever  wants  to  make  peace,  you  may  be 
certain  that  England  will  not  make  it,  not  for  ten  years, 
if  necessary." 

But  enough  of  this,  too.  Through  the  unremitting 
efforts  of  Pohsh  friends  we  obtained  at  last  the  per- 
mission to  travel  to  Vienna.  Once  there,  the  wing  of 
the  American  Eagle  was  extended  over  our  uneasy 
heads.  We  cannot  be  sufficiently  grateful  to  the 
American  Ambassador  (who  all  along,  interested  him- 
self in  our  fate)  for  his  exertions  on  our  behalf,  his  in- 
valuable assistance  and  the  real  friendliness  of  his 
reception  in  Vienna.  Owing  to  Mr.  Penfield's  action 
we  obtained  the  permission  to  leave  Austria.  And 
it  was  a  near  thing,  for  his  Excellency  has  informed  my 
American  publishers  since  that  a  week  later  orders 
were  issued  to  haye  us  detained  till  the  end  of  the  war. 
However,  we  effected  our  hair's-breadth  escape  into 
Italy;  and,  reaching  Genoa,  took  passage  in  a  Dutch 
mail  steamer,  homeward-bound  from  Java  with  London 
as  a  port  of  call. 

On  that  sea-route  I  might  have  picked  up  a  memory 
at  every  mile  if  the  past  had  not  been  eclipsed  by  the 
tremendous  actuality.  We  saw  the  signs  of  it  in  the 
emptiness  of  the  Mediterranean,  the  aspect  of  Gibraltar, 
the  misty  glimpse  in  the  Bay  of  Biscay  of  an  outward- 
bound  convoy  of  transports,  in  the  presence  of  British 


POLAND  REVISITED  173 

submarines  In  the  Channel.  Innumerable  drifters  flying 
the  Naval  flag  dotted  the  narrow  waters  and  two  Naval 
officers  coming  on  board  off  the  South  Foreland,  piloted 
the  ship  t'^rough  the  Downs. 

The  Dowels!  There  they  were,  thick  with  the 
memories  of  my  sea-life.  But  what  were  to  me  now  the 
futilities  of  an  individual  past?  As  our  ship's  head 
swung  into  the  estuary  of  the  Thames,  a  deep,  yet  faint, 
concussion  passed  through  the  air,  a  shock  rather  than  a 
sound,  which  missing  my  ear  found  its  way  straight 
into  my  heart.  Turning  instinctively  to  look  at  my 
boys,  I  happened  to  meet  my  wife's  eyes.  She  also  had 
felt  profoundly,  coming  from  far  away  across  the  grey 
distances  of  the  sea,  the  faint  boom  of  the  big  guns  at 
work  on  the  coast  of  Flanders — shaping  the  future. 


FIRST  NEWS 
1918 

Four  years  ago,  on  the  first  day  of  August,  in  the 
town  of  Cracow,  Austrian  Poland,  nobody  would 
believe  that  the  war  was  coming.  My  apprehensions 
were  met  by  the  words:  "We  have  had  these  scares 
before."  This  incredulity  was  so  universal  amongst 
people  of  intelligence  and  information,  that  even  I,  who 
Iiad  accustomed  myself  to  look  at  the  ine\'itable  for 
years  past,  felt  my  conviction  shaken.  At  that  time,  it 
must  be  noted,  the  Austrian  army  was  already  partly 
mobilised,  and  as  we  came  through  Austrian  Silesia  v/e 
had  noticed  all  the  bridges  being  guarded  by  soldiers. 

"Austria  wall  back  down,"  was  the  opinion  of  all  the 
well-informed  men  with  whom  I  talked  on  the  first  of 
August.  The  session  of  the  University  was  ended  and 
the  students  were  either  all  gone  or  going  home  to 
different  parts  of  Poland,  but  the  professors  had  not  all 
departed  yet  on  their  respective  holidays,  and  amongst 
them  the  tone  of  scepticism  prevailed  generally.  Upon 
the  whole  there  was  very  little  inclination  to  talk  about 
the  possibility  of  a  war.  Nationally,  the  Poles  felt  that 
from  their  point  of  view  there  was  nothing  to  hope  from 
it.  "Whatever  happens,"  said  a  very  distinguished  man 
to  me,  "we  may  be  certain  that  it's  our  skins  which  will 
pay  for  it  as  usual."  A  well-known  literary  critic  and 
writer  on  economical  subjects  said  to  me :  "  War  seems  a 
material  impossibility,  precisely  because  it  would  mean 
the  complete  ruin  of  all  material  interests." 

17# 


FIRST  NEWS  175 

He  was  wrong,  as  we  know;  but  those  who  said  that 
Austria  as  usual  would  back  down  were,  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  perfectly  right.  Austria  did  back  down.  What 
these  men  did  not  foresee  was  the  interference  of 
Germany.  And  one  cannot  blame  them  very  well;  for 
who  could  guess  that,  when  the  balance  stood  even,  tlie 
German  sword  would  be  thrown  into  the  scale  with 
nothing  in  the  open  political  situation  to  justify  that 
act,  or  rather  that  crime — if  crime  can  ever  be  justified  ? 
For,  as  the  same  intelligent  man  said  to  me:  "As  it  is, 
those  people"  (meaning  Germans)  "have  very  nearly 
the  whole  world  in  their  economic  grip.  Their  prestige 
is  even  greater  than  their  actual  strength.  It  can  get 
for  them  practically  everything  they  want.  Then  why 
risk  it.'^"  And  there  was  no  apparent  answer  to  the 
question  put  in  that  way.  I  must  also  say  that  the 
Poles  had  no  illusions  about  the  strength  of  Russia. 
Those  illusions  were  the  monopoly  of  the  W^esterd 
world. 

Next  day  the  librarian  of  the  University  invited  me 
to  come  and  have  a  look  at  the  library  which  I  had  not 
seen  since  I  was  14  years  old.  It  was  from  him  that  I 
learned  that  the  greater  part  of  my  father's  MSS.  was 
preserved  there.  He  confessed  that  he  had  not  looked 
them  through  thoroughly  yet,  but  he  told  me  that  there 
was  a  lot  of  very  important  letters  bearing  on  the  epoch 
from  '60  to  '63,  to  and  from  many  prominent  Poles  of 
that  time;  and  he  added:  "There  is  a  bundle  of  corres- 
pondence that  will  appeal  to  you  personally.  Those 
are  letters  written  by  your  father  to  an  intimate  friend 
in  whose  papers  they  were  found.  They  contain  many 
references  to  yourself,  though  you  couldn't  have  been 
more  than  four  years  old  at  the  time.  Your  father 
seems  to  have  been  extremely  interested  in  his  son." 
That  afternoon  I  went  to  the  University,  taking  with 


176       NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

me  my  eldest  son.  The  attention  of  that  young 
Enghshman  was  mainly  attracted  by  some  relies  of 
Copernicus  in  a  glass  case.  I  saw  the  bundle  of  letters 
and  accepted  the  kind  proposal  of  the  librarian  that  he 
should  have  them  copied  for  me  during  the  hohdays. 
Li  the  range  of  the  deserted  vaulted  rooms  Imed  with 
books,  full  of  august  memories,  and  in  tlie  passionless 
silence  of  all  this  enshrined  \Aasdom,  we  walked  here  and 
there  talking  of  the  past,  the  great  historical  past  in 
which  lived  the  inextinguishable  spark  of  national  life; 
and  all  around  us  the  centuries-old  buildings  lay  still 
and  empty,  composing  themselves  to  rest  after  a  year  of 
work  on  the  minds  of  another  generation. 

No  echo  of  the  German  ultimatum  to  Russia  pene- 
trated that  academical  peace.  But  the  news  had  come. 
When  we  stepped  into  the  street  out  of  the  deserted 
main  quadrangle,  we  three,  I  imagine,  were  the  only 
people  in  the  town  who  did  not  know  of  it.  My  boy  and 
I  parted  from  the  librarian  (who  hurried  home  to  pack 
up  for  his  holiday)  and  walked  on  to  the  hotel,  where  we 
found  my  wife  actually  in  the  car  waiting  for  us  to  take 
a  run  of  some  ten  miles  to  the  country  house  of  an  old 
school-friend  of  mine.  He  had  been  my  greatest  chum. 
In  my  wanderings  about  the  world  I  had  heard  that  his 
later  career  both  at  school  and  at  the  University  had 
been  of  extraordinary  brilliance — in  classics,  I  believe. 
But  in  this,  the  iron-grey  moustache  period  of  his  life,  he 
informed  me  with  badly  concealed  pride  that  he  had 
gained  world  fame  as  the  Inventor — no.  Inventor  is  not 
the  word — Producer,  I  believe  would  be  the  right  term 
■ — of  a  wonderful  kind  of  beetroot  seed.  The  beet 
grown  from  this  seed  contained  more  sugar  to  the 
square  inch — or  was  it  to  the  square  root.'^ — than  any 
other  kind  of  beet.  He  exported  this  seed,  not  only 
with  profit  (and  even  to  the  United  States),  but  with  a 


FIRST  NEWS  177 

certain  amount  of  glory  which  seemed  to  have  gone 
slightly  to  his  head.  There  is  a  fundamental  strain  of 
agriculturalist  in  a  Pole  which  no  amount  of  brilliance, 
even  classical,  can  destroy.  While  we  were  having  tea 
outside,  looking  down  the  lovely  slope  of  the  gardens  at 
the  view  of  the  city  in  the  distance,  the  possibilities  of 
the  war  faded  from  our  minds.  Suddenly  my  friend's 
wife  came  to  us  with  a  telegram  in  her  hand  and  said 
calmly:  "General  mobilisation,  do  you  know?"  We 
looked  at  her  like  men  aroused  from  a  dream.  "Yes," 
she  insisted,  "they  are  already  taking  the  horses  out  of 
the  ploughs  and  carts."  I  said:  "We  had  better  go 
back  to  town  as  quick  as  we  can,"  and  my  friend  as- 
sented with  a  troubled  look:  "Yes,  you  had  better." 
As  we  passed  through  villages  on  our  way  back  we  saw 
mobs  of  horses  assembled  on  the  commons  with  soldiers 
guarding  them,  and  groups  of  villagers  looking  on 
silently  at  the  officers  with  their  note-books  checking 
dehveries  and  vmting  out  receipts.  Some  old  peasant 
women  were  already  weeping  aloud. 

"VSTien  our  car  drew  up  at  the  door  of  the  hotel,  the 
manager  himself  came  to  help  my  wife  out.  In  the 
first  moment  I  did  not  quite  recognise  him.  His 
luxuriant  black  locks  were  gone,  his  head  was  closely 
cropped,  and  as  I  glanced  at  it  he  smiled  and  said: 
"I  shall  sleep  at  the  barracks  to-night." 

I  cannot  reproduce  the  atmosphere  of  that  night,  the 
first  night  after  mobilisation.  The  shops  and  the  gate- 
ways of  the  houses  were  of  course  closed,  but  all  through 
the  dark  hours  the  town  hummed  with  voices;  the 
echoes  of  distant  shouts  entered  the  open  windows  of  our 
bedroom.  Groups  of  men  talking  noisily  walked  in  the 
middle  of  the  roadway  escorted  by  distressed  women; 
men  of  all  callings  and  of  all  classes  going  to  report  them- 
selves at  the  fortress.     Now  and  then  a  military  car 


178        NOTES  ON  LIFE  Mm  LETTERS 

tooting  furiously  would  whisk  through  the  streets  empty 
of  wheeled  traffic,  like  an  intensely  black  shadow  under 
the  great  flood  of  electric  lights  on  the  grey  pavement. 

But  what  produced  the  greatest  impression  on  my 
mind  was  a  gathering  at  night  in  the  coffee-room  of  my 
hotel  of  a  few  men  of  mark  whom  I  was  asked  to  join.  It 
was  about  one  o'clock  in  the  morning.  The  shutters 
were  up.  For  some  reason  or  other  the  electric  light 
was  not  switched  on,  and  the  big  room  was  lit  up  only  by 
a  few  tall  candles,  just  enough  for  us  to  see  each  other's 
faces  by.  I  saw  in  those  faces  the  awful  desolation  of 
men  whose  country,  torn  in  three,  found  itself  engaged 
in  the  contest  wath  no  will  of  its  own  and  not  even  the 
power  to  assert  itself  at  the  cost  of  life.  All  the  past 
was  gone,  and  there  was  no  future,  whatever  hap- 
pened; no  road  which  did  not  seem  to  lead  to  moral 
annihilation.  I  remember  one  of  those  men  addressing 
me  after  a  period  of  mournful  silence  compounded  of 
mental  exhaustion  and  unexpressed  forebodings. 

"What  do  you  think  England  will  do.?  If  there  is  a 
ray  of  hope  anywhere  it  is  only  there." 

I  said:  "I  believe  I  know  what  England  will  do" 
(this  was  before  the  news  of  the  violation  of  Belgian 
neutrality  arrived),  "though  I  won't  tell  you,  for  I  am 
not  absolutely  certain.  But  I  can  tell  you  what  I  am 
absolutely  certain  of .  It  is  this:  If  England  comes  into 
the  war,  then,  no  matter  who  may  want  to  make  peace 
at  the  end  of  six  months  at  the  cost  of  right  and  justice, 
England  will  keep  on  fighting  for  years  if  necessary. 
You  may  reckon  on  that." 

"  What,  even  alone  .^^ "  asked  somebody  across  the  room. 

I  said:  "Yes,  even  alone.  But  if  things  go  so  far  as 
that  England  will  not  be  alone." 

I  think  that  at  that  moment  I  must  have  been  in- 
spired. 


WELL  DONE 
1918 


It  can  be  safely  said  that  for  the  last  four  years  the 
seamen  of  Great  Britain  have  done  well.  I  mean  that 
every  kind  and  sort  of  human  being  classified  as  seaman, 
steward,  fore-mast  hand,  fireman,  lamp-trimmer,  mate, 
master,  engineer,  and  also  all  through  the  innumerable 
ratings  of  the  Navy  up  to  that  of  Admiral,  has  done 
well.  I  don't  say  marvellously  well  or  miraculously 
well  or  wonderfully  well  or  even  very  well,  because 
these  are  simply  over-statements  of  undisciplined 
minds.  I  don't  deny  that  a  man  may  be  a  marvellous 
being,  but  this  is  not  likely  to  be  discovered  in  his  life- 
time, and  not  always  even  after  he  is  dead.  Man's 
marvellousness  is  a  hidden  thing,  because  the  secrets  of 
his  heart  are  not  to  be  read  by  his  fellows.  As  to  a 
man's  work,  if  it  is  done  well  it  is  the  very  utmost  that 
can  be  said.  You  can  do  well,  and  you  do  no  more  for 
people  to  see.  Li  the  Na\'y%  where  human  values  are 
thoroughly  understood,  the  highest  signal  of  commenda- 
tion complimenting  a  ship  (that  is,  a  ship's  company)  on 
some  achievement,  consists  exactly  of  those  two  simple 
words  "Well  done,"  followed  by  the  name  of  the  ship. 
Not  marvellously  done,  astonishingly  done,  wonderfully 
done — no,  only  just: 

"Well  done,  so-and-so." 

And  to  the  men  it  is  a  matter  of  infinite  pride  that 
somebody  should  judge  it  proper  to  mention  aloud,  as  it. 


180        NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

were,  that  they  have  done  well.  It  is  a  memorable 
occurrence,  for  in  the  sea  services  you  are  expected  pro- 
fessionally and  as  a  matter  of  course  to  do  well,  because 
nothing  less  will  do.  And  in  sober  speech  no  man  can  be 
expected  to  do  more  than  well.  The  superlatives  are 
mere  signs  of  uninformed  wonder.  Thus  the  official 
signal  which  can  express  nothing  but  a  delicate  share  of 
appreciation  becomes  a  great  honour. 

Speaking  now  as  a  purely  civil  seaman  (or,  perhaps,  I 
ought  to  say  civilian,  because  politeness  is  not  what  I 
have  in  my  mind)  I  may  say  that  I  have  never  expected 
the  Merchant  Service  to  do  otherwise  than  well  during 
the  war.  There  were  people  who  obviously  did  not 
feel  the  same  confidence,  nay,  who  even  confidently 
expected  to  see  the  collapse  of  merchant  seamen's 
courage.  I  must  admit  tliat  such  pronouncements  did 
arrest  my  attention.  In  my  time  I  have  never  been 
able  to  detect  any  faint  hearts  in  the  ships'  companies 
with  whom  I  have  served  in  various  capacities.  But 
I  reflected  that  I  had  left  the  sea  in  '94,  twenty  years 
before  the  outbreak  of  the  war  tliat  was  to  apply  its 
severe  test  to  the  quality  of  modem  seamen.  Perhaps 
they  had  deteriorated,  I  said  unwillingly  to  myself.  I 
remembered  also  the  alarmist  articles  I  had  read  about 
the  great  number  of  foreigners  in  the  British  Merchant 
Service,  and  I  didn't  know  how  far  these  lamentations 
were  justified. 

In  my  time  the  proportion  of  non-Britishers  in  the 
crews  of  the  ships  flying  the  red  ensign  was  rather  under 
one-third,  which,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  was  less  than  the 
proportion  allowed  under  the  very  strict  French  naviga- 
tion laws  for  the  crews  of  the  ships  of  that  nation.  For 
the  strictest  laws  aiming  at  the  preservation  of  national 
seamen  had  to  recognise  the  difficulties  of  manning 
merchant  ships  all  oyer  the  world.    The  one-third  of 


WELL  DONE  181 

the  French  law  seemed  to  be  the  irreducible  minimum. 
But  the  British  proportion  was  even  less.  Thus  it  may 
be  said  that  up  to  tlie  date  I  have  mentioned  the  crews 
of  British  merchant  ships  engaged  in  deep  vvater  voyages 
to  Australia,  to  the  East  Indies  and  round  the  Horn  were 
essentially  British.  The  small  proportion  of  foreigners 
which  I  remember  were  mostly  Scandinavians,  and  my 
general  impression  remains  that  those  men  were  good 
stuff.  They  appeared  always  able  and  ready  to  do 
their  duty  by  the  flag  under  which  they  served.  The 
majority  were  Norwegians,  whose  courage  and  straight- 
ness  of  character  are  matters  beyond  doubt.  I  remem- 
ber also  a  couple  of  Finns,  both  carpenters,  of  course, 
and  very  good  craftsmen;  a  Swede,  the  most  scientific 
sailmaker  I  ever  met;  anotlier  Swede,  a  steward,  who 
really  might  have  been  called  a  British  seaman  since 
he  had  sailed  out  of  London  for  over  thirty  years,  a 
rather  superior  person;  one  Italian,  an  everlastingly 
smiling  but  a  pugnacious  character;  one  Frenchman,  a 
most  excellent  sailor,  tireless  and  indomitable  under 
very  difficult  circumstances;  one  Hollander,  whose  pla- 
cid manner  of  looking  at  the  ship  going  to  pieces  under 
our  feet  I  shall  never  forget,  and  one  young,  colourless, 
muscularly  very  strong  German,  of  no  particular  char- 
acter. Of  non-European  crews,  lascars  and  Kalashes, 
I  have  had  very  little  experience,  and  that  was  only 
in  one  steamship  and  for  something  less  than  a  year. 
It  was  on  the  same  occasion  that  I  had  my  only  sight 
of  Chinese  firemen.  Sight  is  the  exact  word.  One 
didn't  speak  to  them.  One  saw  them  going  along  the 
decks,  to  and  fro,  characteristic  figures  with  rolled-up 
pigtails,  very  dirty  when  coming  off  duty  and  very  clean- 
faced  when  going  on  duty.  They  never  looked  at  any- 
body, and  one  never  had  occasion  to  address  them 
directly.    Their  appearances  in  the  light  of  day  were 


182        NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

very  regular  and  yet  somewhat  ghostlike  in  their 
detachment  and  silence. 

But  of  the  white  crews  of  British  ships  and  almost 
exclusively  British  in  blood  and  descent,  the  immediate 
predecessors  of  the  men  whose  worth  the  nation  has 
discovered  for  itself  to-day,  I  have  had  a  thorough 
experience.  At  first  amongst  them,  then  with  them,  I 
have  shared  all  the  conditions  of  their  very  special  life. 
For  it  was  very  special.  Li  my  early  days,  starting  out 
on  a  voyage  was  like  being  launched  into  Eternity.  I 
say  advisedly  Eternity  instead  of  Space,  because  of  the 
boundless  silence  which  swallowed  up  one  for  eighty  days 
— for  one  hundred  days — for  even  yet  more  days  of  an 
existence  without  echoes  and  whispers.  Like  Eternity 
itself!  For  one  can't  conceive  a  vocal  Eternity.  An 
enormous  silence,  in  which  there  was  nothing  to  connect 
one  with  the  Universe  but  the  incessant  wheeling  about 
of  the  sun  and  other  celestial  bodies,  the  alternation  of 
light  and  shadow,  eternally  chasing  each  other  over  \he 
sky.  The  time  of  the  earth,  though  most  carefully  re- 
corded by  the  half-hourly  bells,  did  not  count  in  reality. 

It  was  a  special  life,  and  the  men  were  a  very  special 
kind  of  men.  By  this  I  don't  mean  to  say  they  were 
more  complex  than  the  generality  of  mankind.  Neither 
were  they  very  much  simpler.  I  have  already  admitted 
that  man  is  a  marvellous  creature,  and  no  doubt  those 
particular  men  were  marvellous  enough  in  their  way. 
But  in  their  collective  capacity  they  can  be  best  defined 
as  men  who  lived  under  the  command  to  do  well,  or 
perish  utterly.  I  have  written  of  them  with  all  the 
truth  that  was  in  me,  and  with  all  the  impartiality  of 
which  I  was  capable.  Let  me  not  be  misunderstood  in 
this  statement.  Affection  can  be  very  exacting,  and 
can  easily  miss  fairness  on  the  critical  side.  I  have 
looked  upon  them  with  a  jealous  eye,  expecting  perhaps 


^VELL  DONE  ISS 

even  more  than  it  was  strictly  fair  to  expect.  And  no 
wonder — since  I  had  elected  to  be  one  of  them  very 
deliberately,  very  completely,  without  any  looking  back 
or  looking  elsewhere.  The  circumstances  were  such 
as  to  give  me  the  feeling  of  complete  identification,  a 
very  vivid  comprehension  that  if  I  wasn't  one  of  them 
1  was  nothing  at  all.  But  what  was  most  difficult  to  de- 
tect was  the  nature  of  the  deep  impulses  which  these 
men  obeyed.  What  spirit  was  it  that  mspired  the  un- 
failing manifestations  of  their  simple  fidelity.?  No  out- 
ward cohesive  force  of  compulsion  or  discipline  was 
holding  them  together  or  had  ever  shaped  their  un- 
expressed standards.  It  was  very  mysterious.  At 
last  I  came  to  the  conclusion  that  it  must  be  something 
in  the  nature  of  the  life  itself;  the  sea-life  chosen  blindly, 
embraced  for  the  most  part  accidentally  by  those  men 
who  appeared  but  a  loose  agglomeration  of  individuals 
toiling  for  their  living  away  from  the  eyes  of  mankind. 
Who  can  tell  how  a  tradition  comes  into  the  world  .f^  We 
are  children  of  the  earth.  It  may  be  that  the  noblest 
tradition  is  but  the  offspring  of  material  conditions,  of 
the  hard  necessities  besetting  men's  precarious  lives. 
But  once  it  has  been  born  it  becomes  a  spirit.  Nothing 
can  extinguish  its  force  then.  Clouds  of  greedy  selfish- 
ness, the  subtle  dialectics  of  revolt  or  fear,  may  obscure 
it  for  a  time,  but  in  very  truth  it  remains  an  immortal 
ruler  invested  with  the  power  of  honour  and  shame. 

II 

The  mysteriously  born  tradition  of  sea-craft  com- 
mands unity  in  a  body  of  workers  engaged  in  an  occu- 
paLion  in  which  men  have  to  depend  upon  each  other. 
It  raises  them,  so  to  speak,  above  the  frailties  of  their 
dead  selves.    I  don't  wish  to  be  suspected  of  lack  of 


184        NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

judgment  and  of  blind  enthusiasm.  I  don't  claim  spe- 
cial morality  or  even  special  manliness  for  the  men  who 
in  my  time  really  lived  at  sea,  and  at  the  present  time 
live  at  any  rate  mostly  at  sea.  But  in  their  qualities  as 
well  as  in  their  defects,  in  their  wealaiesses  as  well  as  in 
their  "virtue,"  there  was  indubitably  something  apart. 
They  were  never  exactly  of  the  earth  earthly.  They 
couldn't  be  that.  Chance  or  desire  (mostly  desire) 
had  set  them  apart,  often  in  their  very  childhood,  and 
what  is  to  be  remarked  is  that  from  the  very  nature  of 
things  this  early  appeal,  this  early  desire,  had  to  be  of 
an  imaginative  kind.  Thus  their  simple  minds  had  a 
sort  of  sweetness.  They  were  in  a  way  preserved.  I 
am  not  alluding  here  to  the  preserving  qualities  of  the 
salt  in  the  sea.  The  salt  of  the  sea  is  a  very  good  thing 
in  its  way ;  it  preserves  for  instance  one  from  catching  a 
beastly  cold  while  one  remains  wet  for  weeks  together 
in  the  "roaring  forties."  But  in  sober  unpoetical  truth 
the  sea-salt  never  gets  much  further  than  the  seaman's 
skin,  which  in  certain  latitudes  it  takes  the  opportunity 
to  encrust  very  thoroughly.  That  and  nothing  more. 
And  then,  what  is  this  sea,  the  subject  of  so  many 
apostrophes  in  verse  and  prose  addressed  to  its  great- 
ness and  its  mystery  by  men  who  had  never  pene- 
trated either  the  one  or  the  other.?  The  sea  is 
uncertain,  arbitrary,  featureless,  and  violent.  Except 
when  helped  by  the  varied  majesty  of  the  sky,  there  is 
something  inane  in  its  serenity  and  something  stupid  in 
its  wrath,  which  is  endless,  boundless,  persistent,  and 
futile — a  grey,  hoary  thing  raging  like  an  old  ogre  un- 
certain of  its  prey.  Its  very  immensity  is  wearisome. 
At  any  time  within  the  navigating  centuries  mankind 
might  have  addressed  it  with  the  words:  "What  are 
you,  after  all?  Oh  yes,  we  know.  The  greatest  scene 
of  potential  terror,  a  devouring  enigma  of  space.     Yes. 


W^LL  DONE  185 

But  our  lives  have  been  nothing  if  not  a  continuous 
defiance  of  what  you  can  do  and  what  you  may  hold; 
a  spiritual  and  material  defiance  carried  on  in  our 
plucky  cockleshells  on  and  on  beyond  the  successive 
provocations  of  your  unreadable  horizons." 

Ah,  but  the  charm  of  the  sea!  Oh,  yes,  charm 
enough.  Or  rather  a  sort  of  unholy  fascination  as  of  an 
elusive  nymph  whose  embrace  is  death,  and  a  Medusa's 
head  whose  stare  is  terror.  That  sort  of  charm  is  cal- 
culated to  keep  men  morally  in  order.  But  as  to  sea- 
salt,  with  its  particular  bitterness  like  nothing  else 
on  earth,  that,  I  am  safe  to  say,  penetrates  no  further 
than  the  seaman's  lips.  With  them  the  inner  soundness 
is  caused  by  another  kind  of  preservative  of  which 
(nobody  will  be  surprised  to  hear)  the  main  ingredient 
is  a  certain  kind  of  love  that  has  nothing  to  do  with  the 
futile  smiles  and  the  futile  passions  of  the  sea. 

Being  love  this  feeling  is  naturally  nai've  and  imagina- 
tive. It  has  also  in  it  that  strain  of  fantasy  that  is  so 
often,  nay  almost  invariably,  to  be  found  in  the  tempera- 
ment of  a  true  seaman.  But  I  repeat  that  I  claim  no 
particular  morality  for  seamen.  I  will  admit  without 
difl5culty  that  I  have  found  amongst  them  the  usual  de- 
fects of  mankind,  characters  not  quite  straight,  un- 
certain tempers,  vacillating  wills,  capriciousness,  small 
meannesses;  all  this  coming  out  mostly  on  the  contact 
with  the  shore;  and  all  rather  naive,  peculiar,  a  little 
fantastic,  jl  have  even  had  a  downright  thief  in  my  ex- 
perience.    One. 

This  is  indeed  a  minute  proportion,  but  it  might  have 
been  my  luck;  and  since  I  am  writing  in  eulogy  of  sea- 
men I  feel  irresistibly  tempted  to  talk  about  this  unique 
specimen;  not  indeed  to  offer  him  as  an  example  of 
morality,  but  to  bring  out  certain  characteristics  and  set 
out  a  certain  point  of  view.    He  was  a  large,  strong  man 


186        NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

with  a  guileless  countenance,  not  very  communicative 
with  his  shipmates;  but  when  drawn  into  any  sort  of 
conversation  displaying  a  very  painstaking  earnestness. 
He  was  fair  and  candid-eyed,  of  a  very  satisfactory 
smartness,  and,  from  the  officer-of- the- watch  point  of  \ 
view, — altogether  dependable.  Then,  suddenly,  he  went 
and  stole.  And  he  didn't  go  away  from  his  honour- 
able kind  to  do  that  thing  to  somebody  on  shore;  he 
stole  right  there  on  the  spot,  in  proximity  to  his  ship- 
mates, on  board  his  own  ship,  with  complete  disregard 
for  old  Brown,  our  night  watchman  (whose  fame  for 
trustworthiness  was  utterly  blasted  for  the  rest  of  the 
Voyage)  and  in  such  a  way  as  to  bring  the  profoundest 
possible  trouble  to  all  the  blameless  souls  animating 
that  ship.  He  stole  eleven  golden  sovereigns,  and  a 
gold  pocket  chronometer  and  chain.  I  am  really  in 
doubt  whether  the  crime  should  not  be  entered  under 
the  category  of  sacrilege  rather  than  theft.  Those 
things  belonged  to  the  captain!  There  was  certainly 
something  in  the  nature  of  the  violation  of  a  sanctuary, 
and  of  a  particularly  impudent  kind,  too,  because  he  got 
his  plunder  out  of  the  captain's  state-room  while  the 
captain  was  asleep  there.  But  look,  now,  at  the 
fantasy  of  the  man!  After  going  through  the  pockets 
of  the  clothes,  he  did  not  hasten  to  retreat.  No.  He 
went  deliberately  into  the  saloon  and  removed  from  the 
sideboard  two  big,  heavy,  silver-plated  lamps,  which  he 
carried  to  the  fore-end  of  the  ship  and  stood  symmetri- 
cally on  the  knight-heads.  This,  I  must  explain,  means 
that  he  took  them  away  as  far  as  possible  from  the  place 
where  they  belonged.  These  were  the  deeds  of  dark- 
ness. Li  the  morning  the  bo'sun  came  along  dragging 
after  him  a  hose  to  wash  the  foc'sle  head,  and,  beholding 
the  shiny  cabin  lamps,  resplendent  in  the  morning  light, 
one  on  each  side  of  the  bowsprit,  he  was  paralysed  with 


WELL  DONE  187 

awe.  He  dropped  the  nozzle  from  his  nerveless  hands — 
and  such  hands,  too !  I  happened  along,  and  he  said  to 
me  in  a  distracted  whisper,  "Look  at  that,  sir,  look.'* 
"Take  them  back  aft  at  once  yourself,"  I  said,  very- 
amazed,  too.  As  we  approached  the  quarterdeck  we 
perceived  the  steward,  a  prey  to  a  sort  of  sacred  horror, 
holdmg  up  before  us  the  captain's  trousers. 

Bronzed  men  with  brooms  and  buckets  in  their  hands 
stood  about  with  open  mouths.  "I  have  found  them 
lying  in  the  passage  outside  tlie  captain's  door,"  the 
steward  declared  faintly.  The  additional  statement 
that  the  captam's  watch  was  gone  from  its  hook  by  the 
bedside  raised  the  painful  sensation  to  tlie  highest  pitch. 
We  knew  tlien  we  had  a  tliief  amongst  us.  Our  thief! 
Behold  the  solidarity  of  a  ship's  company.  He  couldn't 
be  to  us  like  any  other  thief.  We  all  had  to  live  under 
tlie  shadow  of  his  crime  for  days;  but  tlie  police  kept  on 
investigating,  and  one  morning  a  young  woman  ap- 
peared on  board  swinging  a  parasol,  attended  by  two 
policemen,  and  identified  the  culprit.  She  was  a  bar- 
maid of  some  bar  near  the  Circular  Quay,  and  knew 
really  nothing  of  our  man  except  that  he  looked  like 
a  respectable  sailor.  She  had  seen  him  only  twice  in  her 
life.  On  the  second  occasion  he  begged  her  nicely  as  a 
great  favour  to  take  care  for  him  of  a  small  solidly  tied- 
up  paper  parcel  for  a  day  or  two.  But  he  never  came 
near  her  again.  At  the  end  of  three  weeks  she  opened 
it,  and,  of  course,  seeing  the  contents,  was  much  alarmed, 
and  went  to  the  nearest  police-station  for  advice.  The 
police  took  her  at  once  on  board  our  ship,  where  all 
hands  were  mustered  on  the  quarterdeck.  She  stared 
wildly  at  all  our  faces,  pointed  suddenly  a  finger  with  a 
shriek,  "That's  the  man,"  and  incontinently  went  off 
into  a  fit  of  hysterics  in  front  of  thirty-six  seamen.  I 
must  say  that  never  in  my  life  did  I  see  a  ship's  company 


188        NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

look  so  frightened.  Yes,  in  this  tale  of  guilt,  there  was  a 
curious  absence  of  mere  criminality,  and  a  touch  of 
that  fantasy  which  is  often  a  part  of  a  seaman's  char- 
acter. It  wasn't  greed  that  moved  him,  I  think.  It  was 
something  much  less  simple:  boredom,  perhaps,  or  a 
bet,  or  the  pleasure  of  defiance. 

And  now  for  the  point  of  view.  It  was  given  to  me 
by  a  short,  black-bearded  A.  B.  of  the  crew,  who  on 
sea  passages  washed  my  flannel  shirts,  mended  my 
clothes  and  generally  looked  after  my  room.  He 
was  an  excellent  needleman  and  washerman,  and  a 
very  good  sailor.  Standing  in  this  peculiar  relation  to 
me,  he  considered  himself  privileged  to  open  his  mind 
on  the  matter  one  evening  when  he  brought  back  to  my 
cabin  three  clean  and  neatly  folded  shirts.  He  was 
profoundly  pained.  He  said:  "What  a  ship's  com- 
pany! Never  seen  such  a  crowd!  Liars,  cheats, 
thieves     .     .     ." 

It  was  a  needlessly  jaundiced  view.  There  were  in 
that  ship's  company  three  or  four  fellows  who  dealt  in 
tall  yarns,  and  I  knew  that  on  the  passage  out  there  had 
been  a  dispute  over  a  game  in  the  foc'sle  once  or  twice  of 
a  rather  acute  kind,  so  that  all  card -playing  had  to  be 
abandoned.  In  regard  to  thieves,  as  we  know,  there 
was  only  one,  and  he,  I  am  convinced,  came  out  of  his 
reserve  to  perform  an  exploit  rather  than  to  commit  a 
crime.  But  my  black-bearded  friend's  indignation  had 
its  special  morality,  for  he  added,  with  a  burst  of  pas- 
sion: "And  on  board  our  ship,  too — a  ship  like 
this     .     .     ." 

Therein  lies  the  secret  of  the  seamen's  special  charac- 
ter as  a  body.  The  ship,  this  ship,  our  ship,  the  ship  we 
serve,  is  the  moral  symbol  of  our  life.  A  ship  has  to  be 
respected,  actually  and  ideally;  her  merit,  her  innocence, 
are  sacred  things.     Of  all  the  creations  of  man  she  is  the 


WELL  DONE  189 

closest  partner  of  his  toil  and  courage.  From  every 
point  of  view  it  is  imperative  that  you  should  do  well  by 
her.  And,  as  always  in  the  case  of  true  love,  all  you 
can  do  for  her  adds  only  to  the  tale  of  her  merits  in  your 
heart.  Mute  and  compelling,  she  claims  not  only  your 
fidelity,  but  your  respect.  And  the  supreme  "Well 
done!"  which  you  may  earn  is  made  over  to  her. 

Ill 

It  is  my  deep  conviction,  or,  perhaps,  I  ought  to  say 
my  deep  feeling  born  from  personal  experience,  that  it 
is  not  the  sea  but  the  ships  of  the  sea  that  guide  and 
command  that  spirit  of  adventure  which  some  say  is  the 
second  nature  of  British  men.  I  don't  want  to  provoke 
a  controversy  (for  intellectually  I  am  rather  a  Quietist) 
but  I  venture  to  affirm  that  the  main  characteristic  of 
the  British  men  spread  all  over  the  world,  is  not  the 
spirit  of  adventure  so  much  as  the  spirit  of  service.  I 
think  that  this  could  be  demonstrated  from  the  history 
of  great  voyages  and  the  general  activity  of  the  race. 
That  the  British  man  has  always  liked  his  service  to  be 
adventurous  rather  than  otherwise  cannot  be  denied, 
for  each  British  man  began  by  being  young  in  his  time 
when  all  risk  has  a  glamour.  Afterwards,  with  the 
course  of  years,  risk  became  a  part  of  his  daily  work;  he 
would  have  missed  it  from  his  side  as  one  misses  a 
loved  companion. 

The  mere  love  of  adventure  is  no  saving  grace.  It  is 
no  grace  at  all.  It  lays  a  man  under  no  obligation 
of  faithfulness  to  an  idea  and  even  to  his  own  self. 
Roughly  speaking,  an  adventurer  may  be  expected  to 
have  courage,  or  at  any  rate  may  be  said  to  need  it.  But 
courage  in  itself  is  not  an  ideal.  A  successful  highway- 
man showed  courage  of  a  sort,  and  pirate  crews  have 


190       NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

been  known  to  fight  with  courage  or  perhaps  only  with 
reckless  desperation  in  the  manner  of  cornered  rats. 
There  is  nothing  in  the  world  to  prevent  a  mere  lover  or 
pursuer  of  adventure  from  running  at  any  moment. 
There  is  his  own  self,  his  mere  taste  for  excitement,  the 
prospect  of  some  sort  of  gain,  but  there  is  no  sort  of 
loyalty  to  bind  him  in  honour  to  consistent  conduct. 
I  have  noticed  that  the  majority  of  mere  lovers  of  ad- 
venture are  mightily  careful  of  their  skins;  and  the 
proof  of  it  is  that  so  many  of  them  manage  to  keep  it 
whole  to  an  advanced  age.  You  find  them  in  mysteri- 
ous nooks  of  islands  and  continents,  mostly  red-nosed 
and  watery-eyed,  and  not  even  amusingly  boastful. 
There  is  nothing  more  futile  under  the  sun  than  a  mere 
adventurer.  He  might  have  loved  at  one  time — which 
would  have  been  a  saving  grace.  I  mean  loved  adven- 
ture for  itself.  But  if  so,  he  was  bound  to  lose  this 
grace  very  soon.  Adventure  by  itself  is  but  a  phantom, 
a  dubious  shape  without  a  heart.  Yes,  there  is  noth- 
ing more  futile  than  an  adventurer,  but  nobody  can 
say  that  the  adventurous  activities  of  the  British  race 
are  stamped  with  the  futility  of  a  chase  after  mere 
emotions. 

The  successive  generations  that  went  out  to  sea 
from  these  Isles  WTnt  out  to  toil  desperately  in  ad- 
venturous conditions.  A  man  is  a  worker.  If  he  is  not 
that  he  is  nothing.  Just  nothing— like  a  mere  ad- 
venturer. Those  men  understood  the  nature  of  their 
work,  but  more  or  less  dimly,  in  various  degrees  of  im- 
perfection. The  best  and  greatest  of  their  leaders  even 
had  never  seen  it  clearly,  because  of  its  magnitude  and 
the  remoteness  of  its  end.  This  is  the  common  fate  of 
mankind,  whose  most  positive  achievements  are  born 
from  dreams  and  visions  followed  loyally  to  an  unknown 
destination.     And  it  doesn't  matter.     For  the  great 


WELL  DONE  191 

mass  of  mankind  the  only  saving  grace  that  is  needed 
is  steady  fidelity  to  what  is  nearest  to  hand  and 
heart  in  the  short  moment  of  each  human  effort.  In 
other  and  in  greater  words,  what  is  needed  is  a  sense 
of  immediate  duty,  and  a  feeling  of  impalpable  con- 
straint. Indeed,  seamen  and  duty  are  all  the  time 
inseparable  companions.  It  has  been  suggested  to  me 
that  this  sense  of  duty  is  not  a  patriotic  sense  or  a 
religious  sense,  or  even  a  social  sense  in  a  seaman.  I 
don't  know.  It  seems  to  me  tliat  a  seaman's  duty 
may  be  an  unconscious  compound  of  these  three,  some- 
thing perhaps  smaller  than  either,  but  something  much 
more  definite  for  the  simple  mmd  and  more  adapted 
to  the  humbleness  of  the  seaman's  task.  It  has  been 
suggested  also  to  me  that  this  impalpable  constraint 
is  put  upon  the  nature  of  a  seaman  by  the  Spirit  of  the 
Sea,  which  he  serves  with  a  dumb  and  dogged  devotion. 

Those  are  fine  words  conveymg  a  fine  idea.  But  this 
I  do  know,  that  it  is  very  difficult  to  display  a  dogged 
devotion  to  a  mere  spirit,  however  great.  In  every- 
day life  ordinary  men  require  something  much  more 
material,  effective,  definite,  and  symbolic  on  which  to 
concentrate  their  love  and  their  devotion.  And  then, 
what  is  it,  this  Spirit  of  the  vSea.^^  It  is  too  great  and  too 
elusive  to  be  embraced  and  taken  to  a  human  breast. 
All  that  a  guileless  or  guileful  seaman  knows  of  it  is  its 
hostility,  its  exaction  of  toil  as  endless  as  its  ever-re- 
newed horizons.  No.  \Miat  awakens  the  seaman's 
sense  of  duty,  what  lays  that  impalpable  constraint 
upon  the  strengtli  of  his  manliness,  what  commands  his 
not  always  dumb  if  always  dogged  devotion,  is  not  the 
spirit  of  the  sea  but  something  that  in  his  eyes  has  a 
body,  a  cliaracter,  a  fascination,  and  almost  a  soul — it 
is  his  ship. 

There  is  not  a  day  that  has  passed  for  many  centuries 


192        NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

now  without  the  sun  seeing  scattered  over  all  the  seas 
groups  of  British  men  whose  material  and  moral  exist- 
ence is  conditioned  by  their  loyalty  to  each  other  and 
their  faithful  devotion  to  a  ship. 

Each  age  has  sent  its  contmgent,  not  of  sons  (for  the 
great  mass  of  seamen  have  always  been  a  childless  lot) 
but  of  loyal  and  obscure  successors  taking  up  the 
modest  but  spiritual  inheritance  of  a  hard  life  and  sim- 
ple duties;  of  duties  so  simple  that  nothing  ever  could 
shake  the  traditional  attitude  born  from  the  physical 
conditions  of  the  service.  It  was  always  the  ship, 
bound  on  any  possible  errand  in  the  service  of  the 
nation,  that  has  been  the  stage  for  the  exercise  of 
seamen's  primitive  virtues.  The  dimness  of  great 
distances  and  the  obscurity  of  lives  protected  them 
from  the  nation's  admiring  gaze.  Those  scattered 
distant  ships'  companies  seemed  to  the  eyes  of  the 
earth  only  one  degree  removed  (on  the  right  side,  I 
suppose)  from  the  other  strange  monsters  of  the  deep. 
If  spoken  of  at  all  they  were  spoken  of  in  tones  of  half- 
contemptuous  indulgence.  A  good  many  years  ago  it 
was  my  lot  to  write  about  one  of  those  ships'  companies 
on  a  certain  sea,  under  certain  circumstances,  in  a  book 
of  no  particular  length. 

That  small  group  of  men  whom  I  tried  to  limn  with 
loving  care,  but  sparing  none  of  their  weaknesses,  was 
characterised  by  a  friendly  reviewer  as  a  lot  of  engaging 
ruffians.  This  gave  me  some  food  for  thought.  Was 
it,  then,  in  that  guise  that  they  appeared  through  the 
mists  of  the  sea,  distant,  perplexed,  and  simple-minded.'^ 
And  what  on  earth  is  an  "engaging  ruffian.'^"  He  must 
be  a  creature  of  literary  imagination,  I  thought,  for  the 
two  words  don't  match  in  my  personal  experience.  It 
has  happened  to  me  to  meet  a  few  ruffians  here  and  there, 
but  I  never  found  one  of  them  "engaging."     I  consoled 


WELL  DONE  193 

myself,  however,  by  the  reflection  that  the  friendly 
reviewer  must  have  been  talking  like  a  parrot,  which  so 
often  seems  to  understand  what  it  says. 

Yes,  in  the  mists  of  the  sea,  and  in  their  remoteness 
from  the  rest  of  the  race,  the  shapes  of  those  men 
appeared  distorted,  uncouth  and  faint,  so  faint  as  to  be 
almost  invisible.  It  needed  the  lurid  light  of  the  en- 
gines of  war  to  bring  them  out  into  full  view,  very 
simple,  without  worldly  graces,  organised  now  into  a 
body  of  workers  by  the  genius  of  one  of  themselves, 
who  gave  them  a  place  and  a  voice  in  the  social  scheme; 
but  in  the  main  still  apart  in  their  homeless,  childless 
generations,  scattered  in  loyal  groups  over  all  the  seas, 
giving  faithful  care  to  their  ships  and  serving  the 
nation,  which,  since  they  are  seamen,  can  give  them  no 
reward  but  the  supreme  "Well  Done." 


TRADITION 

1918 

"Work  is  the  law.  Like  iron  that  lying  idle  de- 
generates into  a  mass  of  useless  rust,  like  water  that 
in  an  unruffled  pool  sickens  into  a  stagnant  and  corrupt 
state,  so  without  action  the  spirit  of  men  turns  to  a  dead 
thing,  loses  its  force,  ceases  prompting  us  to  leave  some 
trace  of  ourselves  on  this  earth. "  The  sense  of  the  above 
lines  does  not  belong  to  me.  It  may  be  found  in  the 
note-books  of  one  of  the  greatest  artists  that  ever  lived, 
Leonardo  da  Vinci.  It  has  a  simplicity  and  a  truth 
which  no  amount  of  subtle  comment  can  destroy. 

The  Master  who  had  meditated  so  deeply  on  the 
rebirth  of  arts  and  sciences,  on  the  inward  beauty  of  all 
things, — ships'  lines,  women's  faces — and  on  the  visible 
aspects  of  nature  was  profoundly  right  in  his  pro- 
nouncement on  the  work  that  is  done  on  the  earth. 
From  the  hard  work  of  men  are  born  the  sympathetic 
consciousness  of  a  common  destiny,  the  fidelity  to 
right  practice  which  makes  great  craftsmen,  the  sense 
of  right  conduct  which  we  may  call  honour,  the  devotion 
to  our  calling  and  the  idealism  which  is  not  a  misty, 
winged  angel  without  eyes,  but  a  divine  figure  of 
terrestrial  aspect  with  a  clear  glance  and  with  its  feet 
resting  firmly  on  the  earth  on  which  it  was  born. 

And  work  will  overcome  all  evil,  except  ignorance, 
which  is  the  condition  of  humanity  and,  like  the  ambient 
air,  fills  the  space  between  the  various  sorts  and  con- 
ditions of  men,  which  breeds  hatred,  fear,  and  contempt 

194 


TRADITION  195 

between  the  masses  of  mankind  and  puts  on  men's  lips, 
on  their  innocent  lips,  words  that  are  thoughtless  and 
vain. 

Thoughtless,  for  instance,  were  the  words  that  (in  all 
innocence,  I  believe)  came  on  the  lips  of  a  prominent 
statesman  making  in  the  House  of  Commons  an 
eulogistic  reference  to  the  British  Merchant  Service. 
In  this  name  I  include  men  of  diverse  status  and  origin, 
who  live  on  and  by  the  sea,  by  it  exclusively,  outside  all 
professional  pretensions  and  social  formulas,  men  for 
whom  not  only  their  daily  bread  but  their  collective 
character,  their  personal  achievement  and  their  in- 
dividual merit  come  from  the  sea.  Those  words  of  the 
statesman  were  meant  kindly;  but,  after  all,  this  is  not  a 
complete  excuse.  Rightly  or  wrongly,  we  expect  from  a 
man  of  national  importance  a  larger,  and  at  the  same 
time  a  more  scrupulous  precision  of  speech,  for  it  is 
possible  that  it  may  go  echoing  down  the  ages.  His 
words  were: 

"It  is  right  when  thinking  of  the  Navy  not  to  forget 
the  men  of  the  Merchant  Service,  who  have  shown — • 
and  it  is  more  surprising  because  they  have  had  no 
traditions  towards  it — courage  as  great,"  etc.  etc. 

And  then  he  went  on  talking  of  the  execution  of 
Captain  Fryatt,  an  event  of  undying  memory,  but  less 
connected  with  the  permanent,  unchangeable  conditions 
of  sea  service  than  with  the  wrong  view  German  minds 
delight  in  taking  of  Englishmen's  psychology.  The 
enemy,  he  said,  meant  by  this  atrocity  to  frighten  our 
sailors  away  from  the  sea. 

"What  has  happened?  "  he  goes  on  to  ask.  "Never  at 
any  time  in  peace  have  sailors  stayed  so  short  a  tim€> 
ashore  or  shown  such  a  readiness  to  step  again  into  a 
ship." 

Which  means,  in  other  words,  that  they  answered  to 


196        NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

the  call.  I  should  like  to  know  at  what  time  of  history 
the  English  Merchant  Service,  the  great  body  of  mer- 
chant seamen,  had  failed  to  answer  the  call.  Noticed  or 
unnoticed,  ignored  or  commended,  they  have  answered 
invariably  the  call  to  do  their  work,  the  very  conditions 
of  which  made  them  what  they  are.  They  have  always 
served  the  nation's  needs  through  their  own  invariable 
fidelity  to  the  demands  of  their  special  life;  but  with  the 
development  and  complexity  of  material  civilisation 
they  grew  less  prominent  to  the  nation's  eye  among  all 
the  vast  schemes  of  national  industry.  Never  was  the 
need  greater  and  the  call  to  the  service  more  urgent  than 
to-day.  And  those  inconspicuous  workers  on  whose 
qualities  depends  so  much  of  the  national  welfare  have 
answered  it  without  dismay,  facing  risk  without  glory, 
in  the  perfect  faithfulness  to  that  tradition  which  the 
speech  of  the  statesman  denies  to  them  at  the  very 
moment  when  he  thinks  fit  to  praise  their  courage  .  .  . 
and  mention  his  surprise! 

The  hour  of  opportunity  has  struck — ^not  for  the 
first  time — for  the  Merchant  Service;  and  if  I  associate 
myself  with  all  my  heart  in  the  admiration  and  the 
praise  which  is  the  greatest  reward  of  brave  men  I  must 
be  excused  from  joining  in  any  sentiment  of  surprise. 
It  is  perhaps  because  I  have  not  been  born  to  the  in- 
heritance of  that  tradition,  which  has  yet  fashioned  the 
fundamental  part  of  my  character  in  my  young  days, 
that  I  am  so  consciously  aware  of  it  and  venture  to 
vindicate  its  existence  in  this  outspoken  manner. 

Merchant  seamen  have  always  been  what  they  are 
now,  from  their  earliest  days,  before  the  Royal 
Navy  had  been  fashioned  out  of  the  material  they 
furnished  for  the  hands  of  kings  and  statesmen.  Their 
work  has  made  them,  as  work  undertaken  with  single- 
minded  devotion  makes  men,  giving  to  their  achieve- 


TRADITION  197 

ments  that  vitality  and  continuity  in  which  their  souls 
are  expressed,  tempered  and  matured  through  the 
succeeding  generations.  In  its  simplest  definition  the 
work  of  merchant  seamen  has  been  to  take  ships  en- 
trusted to  their  care  from  port  to  port  across  the  seas; 
and,  from  the  highest  to  the  lowest,  to  watch  and 
labour  with  devotion  for  the  safety  of  the  property  and 
the  lives  committed  to  their  skill  and  fortitude  through 
the  hazards  of  innumerable  voyages. 

That  was  always  the  clear  task,  the  single  aim,  the 
simple  ideal,  the  only  problem  for  an  unselfish  solution. 
The  terms  of  it  have  changed  with  the  years,  its  risks 
have  worn  different  aspects  from  time  to  time.  There 
are  no  longer  any  unexplored  seas.  Human  ingenuity 
has  devised  better  means  to  meet  the  dangers  of  natural 
forces.  But  it  is  always  the  same  problem.  The 
youngsters  who  were  growing  up  at  sea  at  the  end  of  my 
service  are  comnianding  ships  now.  At  least  I  have 
heard  of  some  of  them  who  do.  And  whatever  the 
shape  and  power  of  their  ships  the  character  of  the  duty 
remains  the  same.  A  mine  or  a  torpedo  that  strikes 
your  ship  is  not  so  very  different  from  a  sharp,  un- 
charted rock  tearing  her  life  out  of  her  in  another  way. 
At  a  greater  cost  of  vital  energy,  under  the  well-nigh 
intolerable  stress  of  vigilance  and  resolution,  they  are 
doing  steadily  the  work  of  their  professional  forefathers 
in  the  midst  of  multiplied  dangers.  They  go  to  and  fro 
across  the  oceans  on  their  everlasting  task:  tlie  same 
men,  the  same  stout  hearts,  the  same  fidelity  to  an 
exacting  tradition  created  by  simple  toilers  who  in  their 
time  knew  how  to  live  and  die  at  sea. 

Allowed  to  share  in  this  work  and  in  this  tradition  for 
something  lilve  twenty  years,  I  am  bold  enough  to  think 
that  perhaps  I  am  not  altogether  unworthy  to  speak  of 
it.     It  was  the  sphere  not  only  of  my  activity  but,  I 


198        NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

maj^  safely  say,  also  my  affections;  but  after  such  a  close 
connection  it  is  very  difficult  to  avoid  bringing  in  one's 
own  personality.  Without  looking  at  all  at  the  aspects 
of  the  Labour  problem,  I  can  safely  affirm  that  I  have 
never,  never  seen  British  seamen  refuse  any  risk,  any 
exertion,  any  effort  of  spirit  or  body  up  to  the  extremes t 
demands  of  their  calling.  Years  ago — it  seems  ages 
ago — I  have  seen  the  crew  of  a  British  ship  fight  the  fire 
in  the  cargo  for  a  whole  sleepless  week  and  then,  with 
her  decks  blown  up,  I  have  seen  them  still  continue  the 
fight  to  save  tlie  floating  shell.  And  at  last  I  have  seen 
them  refuse  to  be  taken  off  by  a  vessel  standing  by,  and 
this  only  in  order  "to  see  the  last  of  our  ship,"  at  the 
word,  at  the  simple  word,  of  a  man  who  commanded 
tliem,  a  worthy  soul  indeed,  but  of  no  heroic  aspect. 
I  have  seen  that.  I  have  shared  their  days  in  small 
boats.  Hard  days.  Ages  ago.  And  now  let  me  men- 
tion a  story  of  to-day. 

I  will  try  to  relate  it  here  mainly  in  the  words  of  the 
chief  engineer  of  a  certain  steamship  which,  after  bunk- 
ering, left  Lerwick  bound  for  Iceland.  The  weather 
was  cold,  the  sea  pretty  rough,  with  a  stiff  head  wind. 
All  went  well  till  next  day,  about  1.30  p.  m.,  then  the 
captain  sighted  a  suspicious  object  far  away  to  star- 
board. Speed  was  increased  at  once  to  close  in  with 
the  Faroes  and  good -look  outs  were  set  fore  and  aft. 
Nothing  further  was  seen  of  the  suspicious  object,  but 
about  half -past  three  without  any  warning  the  ship  was 
struck  amidships  by  a  torpedo  which  exploded  in  the 
bunkers.  None  of  the  crew  was  injured  by  the  ex- 
plosion, and  all  hands,  without  exception,  behaved 
admirably. 

The  chief  officer  with  his  watch  managed  to  lower  the 
No.  3  boat.  Two  other  boats  had  bean  shattered  by 
the  explosion,  and  though  another  lifeboat  was  cleared 


TRADITION  199 

and  ready,  there  was  no  time  to  lower  it,  and  "some  of 
us  jumped  while  others  were  washed  overboard.  Mean- 
time the  captain  had  been  busy  handing  Kfebelts  to  the 
men  and  cheering  them  up  with  words  and  smiles,  with 
no  thought  of  his  own  safety."  The  ship  went  down  in 
\ess  tlian  four  minutes.  The  captain  was  the  last  man 
on  board,  going  down  with  her,  and  was  sucked  under. 
On  coming  up  he  was  caught  under  an  upturned  boat  to 
which  five  hands  were  clinging.  "One  lifeboat,"  says 
the  chief  engineer,  "which  was  floating  empty  in  the 
distance  was  cleverly  manoeuvred  to  our  assistance  by 
the  steward,  who  swam  off  to  her  pluckily.  Our  next 
endeavour  was  to  release  the  captain,  who  was  en- 
tangled under  the  boat.  As  it  was  impossible  to  right 
her,  we  set  to  split  her  side  open  with  the  boat  hook, 
because  by  awful  bad  luck  the  head  of  the  axe  we  had 
flew  off  at  the  first  blow  and  was  lost.  The  rescue  took 
thirty  minutes,  and  the  extricated  captain  was  in  a 
pitiable  condition,  being  badly  bruised  and  having 
swallowed  a  lot  of  salt  water.  He  was  unconscious. 
AVhile  at  that  work  the  submarine  came  to  the  surface 
quite  close  and  made  a  complete  circle  round  us,  the 
seven  men  that  we  counted  on  the  conning  tower  laugh- 
ing at  our  efforts. 

"There  were  eighteen  of  us  saved.  I  deeply  regret 
the  loss  of  the  chief  officer,  a  fine  fellow  and  a  kind  ship- 
mate showing  splendid  promise.  The  other  men  lost — • 
one  A.  B.,  one  greaser,  and  two  firemen — were  quiet» 
conscientious,  good  fellows." 

With  no  restoratives  in  the  boat,  they  endeavoured 
to  bring  the  captain  round  by  means  of  massage.  Mean- 
time the  oars  were  got  out  in  order  to  reach  the  Faroes, 
which  were  about  thirty  miles  dead  to  windward,  but 
after  about  nine  hours'  hard  work  they  had  to  desist, 
and,  putting  out  a  sea-anchor,  they  took  shelter  under 


200        NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

the  canvas  boat-cover  from  the  cold  wind  and  torrential 
rain.  Says  the  narrator:  "We  were  all  very  wet  and 
miserable,  and  decided  to  have  two  biscuits  all  round. 
The  effects  of  this  and  being  under  the  shelter  of  the 
canvas  warmed  us  up  and  made  us  feel  pretty  well  con- 
tented. At  about  sunrise  the  captain  showed  signs  of 
recovery,  and  by  the  time  the  sun  was  up  he  was  looking 
a  lot  better,  much  to  our  relief." 

After  being  informed  of  what  had  been  done  the 
revived  captain  "dropped  a  bombshell  in  our  midst," 
by  proposing  to  make  for  the  Shetlands,  which  were  only 
one  hundred  and  fifty  miles  off.  "The  wind  is  in  our 
favour,"  he  said.  "I  promise  to  take  you  there.  Are  you 
all  willing.'^ "  This — comments  the  chief  engineer — "  from 
a  man  who  but  a  few  hours  previously  had  been  hauled 
back  from  the  grave ! "  The  captain's  confident  manner 
inspired  the  men,  and  they  all  agreed.  Under  the  best 
possible  conditions  a  boat-run  of  one  hundred  and  fifty 
miles  in  the  North  Atlantic  and  in  winter  weather  would 
have  been  a  feat  of  no  mean  merit,  but  in  the  circum- 
stances it  required  uncommon  nerve  and  skill  to  carry 
out  such  a  promise.  With  an  oar  for  a  mast  and  the 
boat-cover  cut  down  for  a  sail  they  started  on  their 
dangerous  journey,  with  the  boat  compass  and  the  stars 
for  their  guide.  The  captain's  undaunted  serenity 
buoyed  them  all  up  against  despondency.  He  told 
them  what  point  he  was  making  for.  It  was  Ronas 
Hill  "and  we  struck  it  as  straight  as  a  die." 

The  chief  engineer  commends  also  the  ship  steward 
for  the  manner  in  which  he  made  the  little  food  they  had 
last,  the  cheery  spirit  he  manifested,  and  the  great  help 
he  was  to  the  captain  by  keeping  the  men  in  good 
humour.  That  trusty  man  had  "his  hands  cruelly 
chafed  with  the  rowing,  but  it  never  damped  his  spirits." 

They  made  Ronas  Hill  (as  straight  as  a  die),  and  the 


TRADITION  201 

cKIef  engineer  cannot  express  their  feelings  of  gratitude 
and  relief  when  they  set  their  feet  on  the  shore.  He 
praises  the  unbounded  kindness  of  the  people  in  Hills- 
wick.  "It  seemed  to  us  all  like  Paradise  regained," 
he  says,  concluding  his  letter  with  the  words: 

"And  there  was  our  captain,  just  his  usual  self,  as 
if  nothing  had  happened,  as  if  bringing  the  boat  that 
hazardous  journey  and  being  the  means  of  saving 
eighteen  souls  was  to  him  an  everyday  occurrence." 

Such  is  the  chief  engineer's  testimony  to  the  con- 
tinuity of  the  old  tradition  of  the  sea,  which  made  by 
the  work  of  men  has  in  its  turn  created  for  them  their 
simple  ideal  of  conduct. 


CONFIDENCE 

1919 

I 

The  seamen  hold  up  the  Edifice.  They  have  been 
holding  it  up  in  the  past  and  they  will  hold  it  up  in  the 
future,  whatever  this  future  may  contain  of  logical  de- 
velopment, of  unforeseen  new  shapes,  of  great  prom- 
ises and  of  dangers  still  unknown. 

It  is  not  an  unpardonable  stretching  of  the  truth  to 
say  that  the  British  Empire  rests  on  transportation.  I 
am  speaking  now  naturally  of  the  sea,  as  a  man  who  has 
lived  on  it  for  many  years,  at  a  time,  too,  when  on 
sighting  a  vessel  on  the  horizon  of  any  of  the  great 
oceans  it  was  perfectly  safe  to  bet  any  reasonable  odds 
on  her  being  a  British  ship — with  the  certitude  of  mak- 
ing a  pretty  good  thing  of  it  at  the  end  of  the  voyage. 

I  have  tried  to  convey  here  in  popular  terms  the 
strong  impression  remembered  from  my  young  days. 
The  Red  Ensign  prevailed  on  the  high  seas  to  such  an 
extent  that  one  always  experienced  a  slight  shock  on 
seeing  some  other  combination  of  colours  blow  out  at 
the  peak  or  flag-pole  of  any  chance  encounter  in  deep 
water.  In  the  long  run  the  persistence  of  the  visual 
fact  forced  upon  the  mind  a  half-unconscious  sense  of  its 
inner  significance.  We  have  all  heard  of  the  well- 
known  view  that  trade  follows  the  flag.  And  that  is  not 
always  true.  There  is  also  this  truth  that  the  flag,  in 
normal  conditions,  represents  commerce  to  the  eye  and 
understanding  of  the  average  man.  This  is  a  truth,  but 
it  is  not  the  whole  truth.     In  its  numbers  and  in  its 

202 


CONFIDENCE  203 

unfailing  ubiquity,  the  British  Red  Ensign,  under 
which  naval  actions  too  have  been  fought,  adventures 
entered  upon  and  sacrifices  offered,  represented  in  fact 
something  more  than  the  prestige  of  a  great  trade. 

The  flutter  of  that  piece  of  red  bunting  showered 
sentiment  on  the  nations  of  the  earth.  I  will  not  ven- 
ture to  say  that  in  every  case  that  sentiment  was  of  a 
friendly  nature.  Of  hatred,  half  concealed  or  con- 
cealed not  at  all,  this  is  not  the  place  to  speak,  and  in- 
deed the  little  I  have  seen  of  it  about  the  world  was 
tainted  with  stupidity  and  seemed  to  confess  in  its  very 
violence  the  extreme  poorness  of  its  case.  But  gener- 
ally it  was  more  in  the  nature  of  envious  wonder  quali- 
fied by  a  half-concealed  admh-ation. 

That  flag,  which  but  for  the  Union  Jack  in  the  corner 
might  have  been  adopted  by  the  most  radical  of  revolu- 
tions, affirmed  in  its  numbers  the  stability  of  purpose, 
the  continuity  of  effort,  and  the  greatness  of  Britain's 
opportunity  pursued  steadily  in  the  order  and  peace  of 
the  world :  that  world  which  for  twenty -five  years  or  so 
after  1870  may  be  said  to  have  been  living  in  holy  calm 
and  hushed  silence  with  only  now  and  then  a  slight 
clink  of  metal,  as  if  in  some  distant  part  of  mankind's 
habitation  some  restless  body  had  stumbled  over  a  heap 
of  old  armour. 

II 

We  who  have  learned  by  now  what  a  world-war  is  like 
may  be  excused  for  considering  the  disturbances  of  that 
period  as  insignificant  brawls,  mere  hole-and-corner 
scuffles.  In  the  world,  which  memory  depicts  as  so 
wonderfully  tranquil  all  over,  it  was  the  sea  yet  that  was 
the  safest  place.  And  the  Red  Ensign,  commercial,  in- 
dustrial, historic,  pervaded  the  sea!  Assertive  only  by 
its  numbers,  highly  significant,  and,  under  its  char- 


204        NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

acter  of  a  trade  emblem,  nationally  expressive,  it  was 
symbolic  of  old  and  new  ideas,  of  conservatism  and 
progress,  of  routine  and  enterprise,  of  drudgery  and 
adventure — ^and  of  a  certain  easy-going  optimism  that 
would  have  appeared  the  Father  of  Sloth  itself  if  it  had 
not  been  so  stubbornly,  so  everlastingly  active. 

The  unimaginative,  hard-working  men,  great  and 
small,  who  served  this  flag  afloat  and  ashore,  nursed 
dumbly  a  mysterious  sense  of  its  greatness.  It 
sheltered  magnificently  their  vagabond  labours  under 
the  sleepless  eye  of  the  sun.  It  held  up  the  Edifice. 
But  it  crowned  it  too.  This  is  not  the  extravagance  of 
a  mixed  metaphor.  It  is  the  sober  expression  of  a  not 
very  complex  truth.  Within  that  double  function  the 
national  life  that  flag  represented  so  well  went  on  in 
safety,  assured  of  its  daily  crust  of  bread  for  which  we 
all  pray  and  without  which  we  would  have  to  give  up 
faith,  hope  and  charity,  the  intellectual  conquests  of  cur 
minds  and  the  sanctified  strength  of  our  labouring  arms. 
I  may  permit  myself  to  speak  of  it  in  these  terms  be- 
cause as  a  matter  of  fact  it  was  on  that  very  symbol  that 
I  had  founded  my  life  and  (as  I  have  said  elsewhere  in  a 
moment  of  outspoken  gratitude)  had  known  for  many 
years  no  other  roof  above  my  head. 

In  those  days  that  symbol  was  not  particularly  re- 
garded. Superficially  and  definitely  it  represented  but 
one  of  the  forms  of  national  activity  rather  remote  from 
the  close-knit  organisations  of  other  industries,  a  kind 
of  toil  not  immediately  under  the  public  eye.  It  was  of 
its  Navy  that  the  nation,  looking  out  of  the  windows  of 
its  world-wide  Edifice,  was  proudly  aware.  And  that 
was  but  fair.  The  Navy  is  the  armed  man  at  the  gate. 
An  existence  depending  upon  the  sea  must  be  guarded 
with  a  jealous,  sleepless  vigilance,  for  the  sea  is  but  a 
fickle  friend. 


CONFIDENCE  205 

It  had  provoked  conflicts,  encouraged  an.bitions,  and 
had  lured  some  nations  to  destruction — as  we  know. 
He — man  or  people — who,  boasting  of  long  years  of 
familiarity  with  the  sea,  neglects  the  strength  and 
cunnmg  of  his  right  hand  is  a  fool.  The  pride  and 
trust  of  the  nation  in  its  Navy  so  strangely  mingled 
with  moments  of  neglect,  caused  by  a  particularly 
thick-headed  idealism,  is  perfectly  justified.  It  is  also 
very  proper :  for  it  is  good  for  a  body  of  men  conscious 
of  a  great  responsibility  to  feel  themselves  recognised,  if 
only  in  that  fallible,  imperfect  and  often  irritating  way 
in  which  recognition  is  sometimes  offered  to  the  de- 
serving. 

But  the  Merchant  Service  had  never  to  suffer  from 
that  sort  of  irritation.  No  recognition  was  thrust  on  it 
offensively,  and,  truth  to  say,  it  did  not  seem  to  concern 
itself  unduly  with  the  claims  of  its  own  obscure  merit. 
It  had  no  consciousness.  It  had  no  words.  It  had  no 
time.  To  these  busy  men  their  work  was  but  the 
ordinary  labour  of  earning  a  living;  their  duties  in  their 
ever-recurring  round  had,  like  the  sun  itself,  the  com- 
monness of  daily  things;  their  individual  fidelity  was 
not  so  much  united  as  merely  co-ordinated  by  an  aim 
that  shone  with  no  spiritual  lustre.  They  were  every- 
day men.  They  were  that,  eminently.  When  the 
great  opportunity  came  to  them  to  link  arms  in  re- 
sponse to  a  supreme  call  they  received  it  with  character- 
istic simplicity,  incorporating  self-sacrifice  into  the 
texture  of  their  common  task,  and,  as  far  as  emotion 
went,  framing  the  horror  of  mankind's  catastrophic 
time  within  the  rigid  rules  of  their  professional  con- 
science. And  who  can  say  that  they  could  have  done 
better  than  this.'* 

Such  was  their  past  both  remote  and  near.  It  has 
been  stubbornly  consistent,  and  as  this  consistency  was 


206        NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

based  upon  the  character  of  men  fashioned  by  a  very 
old  tradition,  there  is  no  doubt  that  it  will  endure.  Such 
changes  as  came  into  the  sea  life  have  been  for  the  main 
part  mechanical  and  affecting  only  the  material  con- 
ditions of  that  inbred  consistency.  That  men  don't 
change  is  a  profound  truth.  They  don't  change  be- 
cause it  is  not  necessary  for  them  to  change  even  if  they 
could  accomplish  that  miracle.  It  is  enough  for  them 
to  be  infinitely  adaptable — as  the  last  four  years  have 
abundantly  proved. 

Ill 

Thus  one  may  await  the  future  without  undue  excite- 
ment and  with  unshaken  confidence.  Whether  the 
hues  of  sunrise  are  angry  or  benign,  gorgeous  or  sinister, 
we  shall  always  have  the  same  sky  over  our  heads.  Yet 
by  a  kindly  dispensation  of  Providence  the  human 
faculty  of  astonishment  will  never  lack  food.  What 
could  be  more  surprising  for  instance,  than  the  calm 
invitation  to  Great  Britain  to  discard  the  force  and 
protection  of  its  Navy.-*  It  has  been  suggested,  it  has 
been  proposed — I  don't  know  whether  it  has  been 
pressed.  Probably  not  much.  For  if  the  excursions  of 
audacious  folly  have  no  bounds  that  human  eye  can  see, 
reason  has  the  habit  of  never  straymg  very  far  away 
from  its  throne. 

It  is  not  the  first  time  in  history  that  excited  voices 
have  been  heard  urging  the  warrior  still  panting  from 
the  fray  to  fling  his  tried  weapons  on  the  altar  of  peace, 
for  they  would  be  needed  no  more!  And  such  voices 
have  been,  in  undying  hope  or  extreme  weariness, 
hstened  to  sometimes.  But  not  for  long.  After  all, 
every  sort  of  shouting  is  a  transitory  thing.  It  is  the 
grim  silence  of  facts  that  remains. 


CONFIDENCE  207 

The  British  Merchant  Service  has  been  challenged  in 
its  supremacy  before.  It  will  be  challenged  again.  It 
may  be  even  asked  menacingly  in  the  name  of  some 
humanitarian  doctrine  or  some  empty  ideal  to  step 
down  voluntarily  from  tliat  place  which  it  has  managed 
to  keep  for  so  many  years.  But  I  imagine  that  it  will 
take  more  than  words  of  brotherly  love  or  brotherly 
anger  (which,  as  is  well  known,  is  the  worst  kind  of 
anger)  to  drive  British  seamen,  armed  or  unarmed, 
from  the  seas.  Firm  in  this  indestructible  if  not  easily 
explained  conviction,  I  can  allow  myself  to  think 
placidly  of  that  long,  long  future  which  I  shall  not  see. 

My  confidence  rests  on  the  hearts  of  men  who  do  not 
change,  though  they  may  forget  many  things  for  a  time 
and  even  forget  to  be  themselves  in  a  moment  of  false 
enthusiasm.  But  of  that  I  am  not  afraid.  It  will  not 
be  for  long.  I  know  the  men.  Through  the  kindness 
of  the  Admiralty  (which,  let  me  confess  here  in  a  white 
sheet,  I  repaid  by  the  basest  ingratitude)  I  was  per- 
mitted during  the  war  to  renew  my  contact  with  the 
British  seamen  of  the  merchant  service.  It  is  to  their 
generosity  in  recognising  me  under  the  shore  rust  of 
twenty -five  years  as  one  of  themselves  that  I  owe  one 
of  the  deepest  emotions  of  my  life.  Never  for  a  mo- 
ment did  I  feel  among  them  like  an  idle,  wandering 
ghost  from  a  distant  past.  They  talked  to  me  seriously, 
openly,  and  with  professional  precision,  of  facts,  of 
events,  of  implements,  I  had  never  heard  of  in  my 
time;  but  the  hands  I  grasped  were  like  the  hands  of  the 
generation  which  had  trained  my  youth  and  is  now  no 
more.  I  recognised  the  character  of  their  glances,  the 
accent  of  their  voices.  Their  moving  tales  of  modern 
instances  were  presented  to  me  with  that  peculiar  turn 
of  mind  flavoured  by  the  inherited  humour  and  sagacity 
of  the  sea.     I  don't  know  what  the  seaman  of  the  future 


208        NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

will  be  like.  He  may  have  to  live  all  his  days  with  a 
telephone  tied  up  to  his  head  and  bristle  all  over  with 
scientific  antennae  like  a  figure  in  a  fantastic  tale.  But 
he  will  always  be  the  man  revealed  to  us  lately,  immut- 
able in  his  slight  variations  like  the  closed  path  of  this 
planet  of  ours  on  which  he  must  find  his  exact  position 
once,  at  the  very  least,  in  every  twenty-four  hours. 

The  greatest  desideratum  of  a  sailor's  life  is  to  be 
*' certain  of  his  position."  It  is  a  source  of  great  worry 
at  times,  but  I  don't  think  that  it  need  be  so  at  this  time. 
Yet  even  the  best  position  has  its  dangers  on  account  of 
the  fickleness  of  the  elements.  But  I  think  that,  left 
untrammelled  to  the  individual  effort  of  its  creators  and 
to  the  collective  spirit  of  its  servants,  the  British  Mer- 
chant Service  will  manage  to  maintain  its  position  on 
this  restless  and  watery  globe.  ^ 


FLIGHT 

1917 

To  BEGIN  at  the  end,  I  will  say  that  the  "landing" 
surprised  me  by  a  slight  and  very  characteristic  "dead" 
sort  of  shock. 

I  may  fairly  call  myself  an  amphibious  creature.  A 
good  half  of  my  active  existence  has  been  passed  in 
familiar  contact  with  salt  water,  and  I  was  aware, 
theoretically,  that  water  is  not  an  elastic  body :  but  it 
was  onl}^  then  that  I  acquired  the  absolute  conviction  of 
the  fact.  I  remember  distinctly  the  thought  flashing 
through  my  head :  "By  Jove !  it  isn't  elastic ! "  Such  is 
the  illuminating  force  of  a  particular  experience. 

This  landing  (on  the  water  of  the  North  Sea)  was 
effected  in  a  Short  biplane  after  one  hour  and  twenty 
minutes  in  the  air.  I  reckon  every  minute  like  a  miser 
counting  his  hoard,  for,  if  what  I've  got  is  mine,  I  am 
not  likely  now  to  increase  the  tale.  That  feeling  is  the 
effect  of  age.  It  strikes  me  as  I  write  that,  when  next 
time  I  leave  the  surface  of  this  globe,  it  won't  be  to  soar 
bodily  above  it  in  the  air.  Quite  the  contrary.  And  I 
am  not  thinking  of  a  submarine  either.     .     .     . 

But  let  us  drop  this  dismal  strain  and  go  back 
logically  to  the  beginning.  I  must  confess  that  I 
started  on  that  flight  in  a  state — I  won't  say  of  fury,  but 
of  a  most  intense  irritation.  I  don't  remember  ever 
feeling  so  annoyed  in  my  life. 

It  came  about  in  this  way.  Two  or  three  days  before, 
I  had  been  invited  to  lunch  at  an  R.  N.  A.  S.  station,  and 


210        NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

was  made  to  feel  very  much  at  home  by  the  nicest  lot  of 
quietly  interesting  young  men  it  had  ever  been  my  good 
fortune  to  meet.  Then  I  was  taken  into  the  sheds.  I 
walked  respectfully  round  and  round  a  lot  of  ma- 
chines of  all  kinds,  and  the  more  I  looked  at  them  the 
more  I  felt  somehow  that  for  all  the  effect  they  produced 
on  me  they  might  have  been  so  many  land-vehicles  of  an 
eccentric  design.  So  I  said  to  Commander  O.,  who 
very  kindly  was  conducting  me,  "This  is  all  very  fine, 
but  to  realise  what  one  is  looking  at,  one  must  have 
been  up." 

He  said  at  once:  "I'll  give  vou  a  flight  to-morrow 
if  you  like." 

I  postulated  that  it  should  be  none  of  those  "ten 
minutes  in  the  air"  affairs.  I  wanted  a  real  business 
flight.  Commander  O.  assured  me  that  I  would  get 
"awfully  bored,"  but  I  declared  that  I  was  willing  to 
take  that  risk.  "Very  vv ell,"  he  said.  " Eleven  o'clock 
to-morrow.     Don't  be  late." 

I  am  sorry  to  say  I  was  about  two  minutes  late,  which 
was  enough,  however,  for  Commander  O.  to  greet  me 
with  a  shout  from  a  great  distance,  "Oh!  You  are 
coming,  then!" 

"Of  course  I  am  coming,"  I  yelled  indignantly. 

He  hurried  up  to  me.  "All  right.  There's  your 
machine,  and  here's  your  pilot.     Come  along." 

A  lot  of  officers  closed  round  me,  rushed  me  into  a 
hut:  two  of  them  began  to  button  me  into  the  coat, 
two  more  were  ramming  a  cap  on  my  head,  others  stood 
around  with  goggles,  wdth  binoculars.  ...  I  couldn't 
understand  the  necessity  of  such  haste.  We  weren't 
going  to  chase  Fritz.  There  was  no  sign  of  Fritz  any- 
where in  the  blue.  Those  dear  boys  did  not  seem  to 
notice  my  age — fifty-eight,  if  a  day — nor  my  infirmities 
— a  gouty  subject  for  years.     This  disregard  was  very 


FLIGHT  211 

flattering,  and  I  tried  to  live  up  to  it,  but  the  pace 
seemed  to  me  terrific.  They  galloped  me  across  a  vast 
expanse  of  open  ground  to  the  water's  edge. 

The  machine  on  its  carriage  seemed  as  big  as  a  cot- 
tage, and  much  more  imposing.  My  young  pilot  went 
up  like  a  bird.  There  was  an  idle,  able-bodied  ladder 
loafing  against  a  shed  within  fifteen  feet  of  me,  but  as 
nobody  seemed  to  notice  it,  I  recommended  myself 
mentally  to  Heaven  and  started  climbing  after  the 
pilot.  The  close  view  of  the  real  fragility  of  that  rigid 
structure  startled  me  considerably,  while  Commander 
O.  discomposed  me  still  more  by  shouting  repeatedly: 
"Don't  put  your  foot  there!"  I  didn't  know  where  to 
put  my  foot.  There  was  a  slight  crack;  I  heard  some 
swear-words  below  me,  and  then  with  a  supreme  effort 
I  rolled  in  and  dropped  into  a  basket-chair,  absolutely 
winded.  A  small  crowd  of  mechanics  and  officers  were 
looking  up  at  me  from  the  ground,  and  while  I  gasped 
visibly  I  thought  to  myself  that  they  would  be  sure  to 
put  it  down  to  sheer  nervousness.  But  I  hadn't  breath 
enough  in  my  body  to  stick  my  head  out  and  shout 
down  to  them: 

"You  know,  it  isn't  that  at  all!" 

Generally  I  try  not  to  think  of  my  age  and  infirmities. 
They  are  not  a  cheerful  subject.  But  I  was  never  so 
angry  and  disgusted  with  them  as  during  that  minute 
or  so  before  the  machine  took  the  water.  As  to  my 
feelings  in  the  air,  those  who  will  read  these  lines  will 
know  their  own,  which  are  so  much  nearer  the  mind 
and  the  heart  than  any  writings  of  an  unprofessional 
can  be.  At  first  all  my  faculties  were  absorbed  and  as 
if  neutralized  by  the  sheer  novelty  of  the  situation. 
The  first  to  emerge  was  the  sense  of  security  so  much 
more  perfect  than  in  any  small  boat  I've  ever  been  in; 
the,   as   it   were,   material,   stillness,   and   immobility 


212        NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

(though  it  was  a  bumpy  day).  I  very  soon  ceased  to 
hear  the  roar  of  the  wind  and  engines — unless,  indeed, 
some  cylinders  missed,  when  I  became  acutely  aware 
of  that.  Within  the  rigid  spread  of  the  powerful  planes, 
so  strangely  motionless,  I  had  sometimes  the  illusion  of 
sitting  as  if  by  enchantment  in  a  block  of  suspended 
marble.  Even  while  looking  over  at  the  aeroplane's 
shadow  running  prettily  over  land  and  sea,  I  had  the 
impression  of  extreme  slowness.  I  imagine  that  had 
she  suddenly  nose-dived  out  of  control,  I  would  have 
gone  to  the  final  smash  without  a  single  additional 
heartbeat.  I  am  sure  I  would  not  have  known.  It 
is  doubtless  otherwise  with  the  man  in  control. 

But  there  was  no  dive,  and  I  returned  to  earth  (after 
an  hour  and  twenty  minutes)  without  having  felt 
"bored"  for  a  single  second.  I  descended  (by  the 
ladder)  thinking  that  I  would  never  go  flying  again. 
No,  never  any  more — lest  its  mysterious  fascination, 
whose  invisible  wing  had  brushed  my  heart  up  there, 
should  change  to  unavailing  regret  in  a  man  too  old  for 
its  glory. 


SOME  REFLECTIONS 
ON  THE  LOSS  OF  THE  TITANIC 

1912 

It  is  with  a  certain  bitterness  that  one  must  admit  to 
oneself  that  the  late  S.  S.  Titanic  had  a  "good  press." 
It  is  perhaps  because  I  have  no  great  practice  of  daily 
newspapers  (I  have  never  seen  so  many  of  them  to- 
getlier  lying  about  my  room)  that  the  white  spaces  and 
the  big  lettering  of  the  headlines  have  an  incongruously 
festive  air  to  my  eyes,  a  disagreeable  effect  of  a  feverish 
exploitation  of  a  sensational  God-send.  And  if  ever  a 
loss  at  sea  fell  under  the  definition,  in  the  terms  of  a 
bill  of  lading,  of  Act  of  God,  this  one  does,  in  its  mag- 
nitude, suddenness  and  severity;  and  in  the  chastening 
influence  it  should  have  on  the  self-confidence  of  man- 
kind. 

I  say  this  with  all  the  seriousness  the  occasion  de- 
mands, though  I  have  neither  the  competence  nor  the 
wish  to  take  a  theological  view  of  this  great  misfortune, 
sending  so  many  souls  to  the  irlast  account.  It  is  but 
a  natural  reflection.  Another  one  flowing  also  from 
the  phraseology  of  bills  of  lading  (a  bill  of  lading  is  a 
shipping  document  limiting  in  certain  of  its  clauses  the 
liability  of  the  carrier)  is  that  the  "King's  Enemies"  of 
a  more  or  less  overt  sort  are  not  altogether  sorry  that 
this  fatal  mishap  should  strike  the  prestige  of  the 
greatest  Merchant  Service  of  the  world.  I  believe  that 
not  a  thousand  miles  from  these  shores  certain  public 
prints  have  betrayed  in  gothic  letters  their  satisfaction 
— to  speak  plainly — by  rather  ill-natured  comments. 

213 


214        NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

In  what  light  one  is  to  look  at  the  action  of  the 
American  Senate  is  more  difficult  to  say.  From  a  cer^ 
tain  point  of  view  the  sight  of  the  august  senators  of  a 
great  Power  rushing  to  New  York  and  beginning  to 
bully  and  badger  the  luckless  "Yamsi" — on  the  very 
quay-side  so  to  speak — seems  to  furnish  the  Shake- 
spearian touch  of  the  comic  to  the  real  tragedy  of  the 
fatuous  drowning  of  all  these  people  who  to  the  last 
moment  put  their  trust  in  mere  bigness,  in  the  reckless 
affirmations  of  commercial  men  and  mere  technicians 
and  in  the  irresponsible  paragraphs  of  the  newspapers 
booming  these  ships!  Yes,  a  grim  touch  of  comedy. 
One  asks  oneself  what  these  men  are  after,  with  this  very 
provincial  display  of  authority,  I  beg  my  friends  in 
the  United  States  pardon  for  calling  these  zealous 
senators  men.  I  don't  wish  to  be  disrespectful.  They 
may  be  of  the  stature  of  demi-gods  for  all  I  know  but 
at  that  great  distance  from  the  shores  of  effete  Europe 
and  in  the  presence  of  so  many  guileless  dead,  their 
size  seems  diminished  from  this  side.  What  are  they 
after  .f^  What  is  there  for  them  to  find  out.'^  We  know 
what  had  happened.  The  ship  scraped  her  side  against 
a  piece  of  ice,  and  sank  after  floating  for  two  hours 
tind  a  half,  taking  a  lot  of  people  down  with  her.  What 
inore  can  they  find  out  from  the  unfair  badgering  of  the 
unhappy  "Yamsi,"  or  the  ruffianly  abuse  of  the  same. 

"Yamsi,"  I  should  explain,  is  a  mere  code  address, 
and  I  use  it  here  symbolically.  I  have  seen  commerce 
pretty  close.  I  know  what  it  is  worth,  and  I  have 
no  particular  regard  for  commercial  magnates,  but  one 
must  protest  against  these  Bumble-like  proceedings. 
Is  it  indignation  at  the  loss  of  so  many  lives  which  is 
at  work  here?  Well,  the  American  railroads  kill  very 
many  people  during  one  single  year,  I  dare  say.  Then 
why  don't  these  dignitaries  come  down  on  the  presi- 


THE  LOSS  OF  THE  TITANIC  215 

dents  of  their  own  railroads,  of  which  one  can't  say 
whether  they  are  mere  means  of  transportation  or  a 
sort  of  gambhng  game  for  the  use  of  American  pluto- 
crats. Is  it  only  an  ardent  and,  upon  the  whole,  praise- 
worthy desire  for  information?  But  the  reports  of  the 
inquiry  tell  us  that  the  august  senators,  though  raising 
a  lot  of  questions  testifying  to  the  complete  innocence 
and  even  blankness  of  their  minds,  are  unable  to  under- 
stand what  the  second  officer  is  saying  to  them.  We 
are  so  informed  by  the  press  from  the  other  side.  Even 
such  a  simple  expression  as  that  one  of  the  look-out  men 
was  stationed  in  the  "eyes  of  the  ship"  was  too  much 
for  the  senators  of  the  land  of  graphic  expression.  What 
it  must  have  been  in  the  more  recondite  matters  I  won't 
even  try  to  think,  because  I  have  no  mind  for  smiles 
just  now.  They  were  greatly  exercised  about  the 
sound  of  explosions  heard  when  half  the  ship  was  under 
water  already.  Was  there  onQ?  Were  there  two.?* 
They  seemed  to  be  smelling  a  rat  there !  Has  not  some 
charitable  soul  told  them  (what  even  schoolboys 
who  read  sea  stories  know)  that  when  a  ship  sinks 
from  a  leak  like  this,  a  deck  or  two  is  always  blown  up ; 
and  that  when  a  steamship  goes  down  by  the  head,  the 
boilers  may,  and  often  do  break  adrift  with  a  sound 
which  resembles  the  sound  of  an  explosion.'^  And  they 
may,  indeed,  explode,  for  all  I  know.  In  the  only  case 
I  have  seen  of  a  steamship  sinking  there  was  such  a 
sound,  but  I  didn't  dive  down  after  her  to  investigate. 
She  was  not  of  45,000  tons  and  declared  unsinkable, 
but  the  sight  was  impressive  enough.  I  shall  never 
forget  the  mufHed,  mysterious  detonation,  the  sudden 
agitation  of  the  sea  round  the  slowly  raised  stern,  and 
to  this  day  I  have  in  my  eye  the  propeller,  seen  per- 
fectly still  in  its  frame  against  a  clear  evening  sky. 
But  perhaps  the  second  officer  has  explained  to  thenj 


216        NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

by  this  time  this  and  a  few  other  little  facts.  Though 
why  an  officer  of  the  British  Merchant  Service  should 
answer  the  questions  of  any  king,  emperor,  autocrat,  or 
senator  of  any  foreign  power  (as  to  an  event  in  which  a 
British  ship  alone  was  concerned,  and  which  did  not 
even  take  place  in  the  territorial  waters  of  that  power) 
passes  my  understanding.  The  only  authority  he  is 
bound  to  answer  is  the  Board  of  Trade.  But  with  what 
face  the  Board  of  Trade,  wliich,  having  made  the  regu- 
lations for  10,000  ton  ships,  put  its  dear  old  bald 
head  under  its  wing  for  ten  years,  took  it  out  only  to 
shelve  an  important  report,  and  with  a  dreary  murmur 
"  Unsinkable "  put  it  back  again,  in  the  hope  of  not 
being  disturbed  for  another  ten  years,  with  what  face  it 
will  be  putting  questions  to  that  man  who  has  done 
his  duty,  as  to  the  facts  of  this  disaster  and  as  to  his 
professional  conduct  in  it — well,  I  don't  know!  I  have 
the  greatest  respect  for  our  established  authorities.  I 
am  a  disciplined  man,  and  I  have  a  natural  indulgence 
for  the  weaknesses  of  human  institutions;  but  I  will 
own  that  at  times  I  have  regretted  their — how  shall  I 
say  it.? — their  imponderability.  A  Board  of  Trade — 
what  is  it?  A  Board  of  ...  I  believe  the  Speaker 
of  the  Irish  Parliament  is  one  of  the  members  of  it.  A 
ghost.  Less  than  that;  as  yet  a  mere  memory.  An 
office  with  adequate  and  no  doubt  comfortable  furni- 
ture, and  a  lot  of  perfectly  irresponsible  gentlemen  who 
exist  packed  in  its  equal  atmosphere  softly,  as  if  in  a  lot 
of  cotton-wool,  and  with  no  care  in  the  world;  for  there 
can  be  no  care  without  personal  responsibility — such, 
for  instance,  as  the  seamen  have — those  seamen  from 
whose  mouths  this  irresponsible  institution  can  take 
away  the  bread — as  a  disciplinary  measure.  Yes — it's 
all  that.  And  what  more.f^  The  name  of  a  politician — 
a  party  man!    Less  than  nothing;  a  mere  void  without 


THE  LOSS  OF  THE  TITANIC  217 

as  much  as  a  shadow  of  responsibihty  cast  into  it  from 
that  hght  in  which  move  the  masses  of  men  who  work, 
who  deal  in  things  and  face  the  reahties — not  the  words 
— of  this  hfe. 

Years  ago  I  remember  overhearing  two  genuine  shell- 
backs of  the  old  type  commenting  on  a  ship's  officer,  who, 
if  not  exactly  incompetent,  did  not  commend  himself 
to  their  severe  judgment  of  accomplished  sailor-men. 
Said  one,  resuming  and  concluding  the  discussion  in  a 
funnily  judicial  tone: 

"The  Board  of  Trade  must  have  been  drunk  when 
they  gave  him  his  certificate." 

I  confess  that  this  notion  of  the  Board  of  Trade  as  an 
entity  having  a  brain  which  could  be  overcome  by  the 
fumes  of  strong  liquor  charmed  me  exceedingly.  For 
then  it  would  have  been  unlike  the  limited  companies 
of  which  some  exasperated  wit  has  once  said  that  they 
had  no  souls  to  be  saved  and  no  bodies  to  be  lacked,  and 
thus  were  free  in  this  world  and  the  next  from  all  the 
effective  sanctions  of  conscientious  conduct.  But,  un- 
fortunately, the  picturesque  pronouncement  overheard 
by  me  was  only  a  characteristic  sally  of  an  annoyed 
sailor.  The  Board  of  Trade  is  composed  of  bloodless 
departments.  It  has  no  limbs  and  no  physiognomy,  or 
else  at  tlie  forthcoming  inquiry  it  might  have  paid  to 
the  victims  of  the  Titanic  disaster  the  small  tribute  of  a 
blush.  I  ask  myself  whether  the  Marine  Department 
of  the  Board  of  Trade  did  really  believe,  when  they  de- 
cided to  shelve  the  report  on  equipment  for  a  time,  that 
a  ship  of  45,000  tons,  that  any  ship,  could  be  made 
practically  indestructible  by  means  of  watertight  bulk- 
heads? It  seems  incredible  to  anybody  who  had  ever 
reflected  upon  the  properties  of  material,  such  as  wood 
or  steel.  You  can't,  let  builders  say  what  they  like, 
make  a  ship  of  such  dimensions  as  strong  proportion- 


218        NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

ately  as  a  much  smaller  one.  The  shocks  our  old 
whalers  had  to  stand  amongst  the  heavy  floes  in  Baffin's 
Bay  were  perfectly  staggermg,  notwithstanding  the 
most  skilful  handling,  and  yet  they  lasted  for  years. 
The  Titanic,  if  one  may  believe  the  last  reports,  has  only 
scraped  against  a  piece  of  ice  which,  I  suspect,  was  not 
an  enormously  bulky  and  comparatively  easily  seen 
berg,  but  the  low  edge  of  a  floe — and  sank.  Leisurely 
enough,  God  knows — and  here  tlie  advantage  of  bulk- 
heads comes  in — for  time  is  a  great  friend,  a  good  helper 
— though  in  this  lamentable  case  these  bulkheads  served 
only  to  prolong  the  agony  of  the  passengers  who  could 
not  be  saved.  But  she  sank,  causing,  apart  from  the 
sorrow  and  the  pity  of  the  loss  of  so  many  lives,  a  sort 
of  surprised  consternation  that  such  a  thing  should 
have  happened  at  all.  T^Tiy?  You  build  a  45,000  ton 
hotel  of  thin  steel  plates  to  secure  the  patronage  of,  say, 
a  couple  of  thousand  rich  people  (for  if  it  had  been  for 
the  emigrant  trade  alone,  there  would  have  been  no 
such  exaggeration  of  mere  size),  you  decorate  it  in  the 
style  of  the  Pharaohs  or  in  the  Louis  Quinze  style — I 
don't  know  which — and  to  please  the  aforesaid  fatuous 
handful  of  mdividuals,  who  have  more  money  than  they 
know  what  to  do  with,  and  to  the  applause  of  two  conti- 
nents, you  launch  that  mass  with  2,000  people  on  board 
at  twenty -one  knots  across  the  sea — a  perfect  exhibition 
of  the  modern  blind  trust  in  mere  material  and  ap- 
pliances. And  then  this  happens.  General  uproar. 
The  blind  trust  in  material  and  appliances  has  received  a 
terrible  shock.  I  will  say  nothing  of  the  credulity  which 
accepts  any  statement  which  specialists,  technicians, 
and  office-people  are  pleased  to  make,  whether  for 
purposes  of  gain  or  glory.  You  stand  there  astonished 
and  hurt  in  your  profoundest  sensibilities.  But  what 
else  under  the  circumstances  could  you  exp»ct? 


THE  LOSS  OF  THE  TITANIC  219 

For  my  part  I  could  much  sooner  believe  in  an  un- 
sinkable  ship  of  3,000  tons  than  in  one  of  40,000  tons. 
It  is  one  of  those  things  that  stand  to  reason.  You  can't 
increase  the  thickness  of  scantling  and  plates  indefi- 
nitely. And  the  mere  weight  of  this  bigness  is  an  added 
disadvantage.  In  reading  the  reports,  the  first  re- 
flection which  occurs  to  one  is  that,  if  that  luckless 
ship  had  been  a  couple  of  hundred  feet  shorter,  she 
would  have  probably  gone  clear  of  the  danger.  But 
then,  perhaps,  she  could  not  have  had  a  swimming  bath 
and  a  French  cafe.  That,  of  course,  is  a  serious  con- 
sideration. I  am  well  aw^are  that  those  responsible  for 
her  short  and  fatal  existence  ask  us  in  desolate  accents 
to  believe  that  if  she  had  hit  end  on  she  would  have  sur- 
vived. Wliicli,  by  a  sort  of  coy  implication,  seems  to 
mean  that  it  was  all  the  fault  of  the  officer  of  the  watch 
(he  is  dead  now)  for  trying  to  avoid  the  obstacle.  We 
shall  have  presently,  in  deference  to  commercial  and 
industrial  interests,  a  new  kind  of  seamanship.  A  very 
new  and  "progressive"  Idnd.  If  you  see  anything  in 
the  way,  by  no  means  try  to  avoid  it;  smash  at  it  full 
tilt.  And  then — and  then  only  you  shall  see  the  tri- 
umph of  material,  of  clever  contrivances,  of  the  whole 
box  of  engineering  tricks  in  fact,  and  cover  with  glory 
a  commercial  concern  of  the  most  unmitigated  sort,  a 
great  Trust,  and  a  great  shipbuilding  yard,  justly  famed 
for  the  super-excellence  of  its  material  and  workman- 
ship. Unsinkable!  See.''  I  told  you  she  was  un- 
sinkable,  if  only  handled  in  accordance  with  the  new 
seamanship.  Everything's  in  that.  x\nd,  doubtless, 
the  Board  of  Trade,  if  properly  approached,  would  con- 
sent to  give  the  needed  instructions  to  its  examiners  of 
Masters  and  Mates.  Behold  the  examination-room  of 
the  future.  Enter  to  the  grizzled  examiner  a  young 
man  of  modest  aspect:     "Are  you  well  up  in  modem 


220        NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

seamanship?"  "I  hope  so,  sir."  "H'm,  let's  see. 
You  are  at  night  on  the  bridge  in  charge  of  a  150,000 
tons  ship,  with  a  motor  track,  organ-loft,  etc.,  etc.,  with 
a  full  cargo  of  passengers,  a  full  crew  of  1,500  cafe 
waiters,  two  sailors  and  a  boy,  three  collapsible  boats  as 
per  Board  of  Trade  regulations,  and  going  at  your  three- 
quarter  speed  of,  say,  about  forty  knots.  You  per- 
ceive suddenly  right  ahead,  and  close  to,  something 
that  looks  like  a  large  ice-floe.  What  would  you  do.'^" 
"Put  the  helm  amidships."  "Very  well.  Why.?" 
*'In  order  to  hit  end  on."  "On  what  grounds  should 
you  endeavour  to  hit  end  on?"  "Because  we  are 
taught  by  our  builders  and  masters  that  the  heavier  the 
smash,  the  smaller  the  damage,  and  because  the  re- 
quirements of  material  should  be  attended  to." 

And  so  on  and  so  on.  The  new  seamanship:  when 
in  doubt  try  to  ram  fairly — whatever's  before  you. 
Very  simple.  If  only  the  Titanic  had  rammed  that 
piece  of  ice  (which  was  not  a  monstrous  berg)  fairly, 
every  pufl&ng  paragraph  would  have  been  vindicated  in 
the  eyes  of  the  credulous  public  which  pays.  But 
would  it  have  been.'^  Well,  I  doubt  it.  I  am  well 
aware  that  in  the  'eighties  the  steamship  Arizona, 
one  of  the  "greyhounds  of  the  ocean"  in  the  jargon  of 
that  day,  did  run  bows  on  against  a  very  unmistakable 
iceberg,  and  managed  to  get  into  port  on  her  collision 
bulkhead.  But  the  Arizona  was  not,  if  I  remember 
rightly,  5,000  tons  register,  let  alone  45,000,  and  she  was 
not  going  at  twenty  knots  per  hour.  I  can't  be  per- 
fectly certain  at  this  distance  of  time,  but  her  sea-speed 
could  not  have  been  more  than  fourteen  at  the  outside. 
Both  these  facts  made  for  safety.  And,  even  if  she  had 
been  engined  to  go  twenty  knots,  there  would  not  have 
been  behind  that  speed  the  enormous  mass,  so  difBcult 
to  check  in  its  impetus,  the  terrific  weight  of  which  is 


THE  LOSS  OF  THE  TITANIC  221 

bound  to  do  damage  to  itself  or  others  at  the  shght- 
est  contact. 

I  assure  you  it  is  not  for  the  vain  pleasure  of  talking 
about  my  own  poor  experiences,  but  only  to  illustrate 
my  point,  that  I  will  relate  here  a  very  unsensational 
little  incident  I  witnessed  now  rather  more  than  twenty 
years  ago  in  Sydney,  N.S.W.  Ships  were  beginning 
then  to  grow  bigger  year  after  year,  though,  of  course, 
the  present  dimensions  were  not  even  dreamt  of.  I  was 
standing  on  the  Circular  Quay  with  a  Sydney  pilot 
watching  a  big  mail  steamship  of  one  of  our  best-known 
companies  being  brought  alongside.  We  admired  her 
lines,  her  noble  appearance,  and  were  impressed  by  her 
size  as  well,  though  her  length,  I  imagine,  was  hardly 
half  that  of  the  Titanic. 

She  came  into  the  Cove  (as  that  part  of  the  harbour  is 
called),  of  course  very  slowly,  and  at  some  hundred  feet 
or  so  short  of  the  quay  she  lost  her  way.  That  quay  was 
then  a  wooden  one,  a  fine  structure  of  mighty  piles  and 
stringers  bearing  a  roadway — a  thing  of  great  strength. 
The  ship,  as  I  have  said  before,  stopped  moving  when 
some  hundred  feet  from  it.  Then  her  engines  were 
rung  on  slow  ahead,  and  immediately  rung  off  again. 
The  propeller  made  just  about  five  turns,  I  should  say. 
She  began  to  move,  stealing  on,  so  to  speak,  without  a 
ripple;  coming  alongside  with  the  utmost  gentleness.  I 
went  on  looking  her  over,  very  much  interested,  but  the 
man  with  me,  the  pilot,  muttered  under  his  breath: 
*'Too  much,  too  much."  His  exercised  judgment  had 
warned  him  of  what  I  did  not  even  suspect.  But  I  be- 
lieve that  neither  of  us  was  exactly  prepared  for  what 
happened.  There  was  a  faint  concussion  of  the  ground 
under  our  feet,  a  groaning  of  piles,  a  snapping  of  great 
iron  bolts,  and  with  a  sound  of  ripping  and  splintering, 
as  when  a  tree  is  blown  do\^^l  by  the  wmd,  a  great  strong 


222        NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

piece  of  wood,  a  baulk  of  squared  timber,  was  displaced 
several  feet  as  if  by  enchantment.  I  looked  at  my 
companion  in  amazement.  "I  could  not  have  believed 
it,"  I  declared.  "No,"  he  said.  "  You  would  not  have 
thought  she  would  have  cracked  an  egg — eh?" 

I  certainly  wouldn't  have  thought  that.  He  shook 
his  head,  and  added:  "Ah!  These  great,  big  things, 
they  want  some  handling." 

Some  months  afterwards  I  was  back  in  Sydney. 
The  same  pilot  brought  me  in  from  sea.  And  I  found 
the  same  steamship,  or  else  another  as  like  her  as  two 
peas,  lying  at  anchor  not  far  from  us.  The  pilot  told  me 
she  had  arrived  the  day  before,  and  that  he  was  to  take 
her  alongside  to-morrow.  I  reminded  him  jocularly  of 
the  damage  to  the  quay.  "Oh!"  he  said,  "we  are  not 
allowed  now  to  bring  them  in  under  their  own  steam. 
We  are  using  tugs." 

A  very  wise  regulation.  And  this  is  my  point — ^that 
size  is  to  a  certain  extent  an  element  of  weakness.  The 
bigger  the  ship,  the  more  delicately  she  must  be  handled. 
Here  is  a  contact  which,  in  the  pilot's  own  words,  you 
wouldn't  think  could  have  cracked  an  egg;  with  the 
astonishing  result  of  something  like  eighty  feet  of  good 
strong  wooden  quay  shaken  loose,  iron  bolts  snapped,  a 
baulk  of  stout  timber  splintered.  Now,  suppose  that 
quay  had  been  of  granite  (as  surely  it  is  now) — or,  in- 
stead of  the  quay,  if  there  had  been,  say,  a  North  Atlan- 
tic fog  there,  with  a  full-grown  iceberg  in  it,  awaiting 
the  gentle  contact  of  a  ship  groping  its  way  along  blind- 
fold.'* Something  would  have  been  hurt,  but  it  would 
not  have  been  the  iceberg. 

Apparently,  there  is  a  point  in  development  when  it 
ceases  to  be  a  true  progress — in  trade,  in  games,  in  the 
marvellous  handiwork  of  men,  and  even  in  their  de- 
mands and  desires  and  aspirations  of  the  moral  and 


THE  LOSS  OF  THE  TITANIC  223 

mental  kind.  There  is  a  point  when  progress,  to  re- 
main a  real  advance,  must  change  slightly  the  direction 
of  its  line.  But  this  is  a  wide  question.  \Vliat  I 
wanted  to  point  out  here  is — that  the  old  Arizona, 
the  marvel  of  her  day,  was  proportionately  stronger, 
handier,  better  equipped,  than  this  triumph  of  modem 
naval  architecture,  tlie  loss  of  which,  in  common  par- 
lance, will  remain  the  sensation  of  this  year.  The 
clatter  of  the  presses  has  been  worthy  of  the  tonnage,  of 
the  prelimJnary  paeans  of  triumph  round  that  vanished 
hull,  of  the  reckless  statements,  and  elaborate  descrip- 
tions of  its  ornate  splendour.  A  great  babble  of  news 
(and  what  sort  of  news  too,  good  heavens!)  and  eager 
comment  has  arisen  around  this  catastrophe,  though  it 
«eems  to  me  that  a  less  strident  note  would  have  been 
more  becoming  in  the  presence  of  so  many  victims  left 
struggling  on  the  sea,  of  lives  miserably  throwTi  away 
for  nothing,  or  Vv'orse  than  nothing :  for  false  standards 
of  achievem.ent,  to  satisfy  a  vulgar  demand  of  a  few 
moneyed  people  for  a  banal  hotel  luxury — the  only  one 
they  can  understand — and  because  the  big  ship  pays, 
in  one  way  or  another:  in  money  or  in  advertising 
value. 

It  is  in  more  ways  than  one  a  very  ugly  business, 
and  a  mere  scrape  along  tlie  ship's  side,  so  slight  that, 
if  reports  are  to  be  believed,  it  did  not  mterrupt  a  card 
party  in  the  gorgeously  fitted  (but  in  chaste  style) 
smoking-room — or  was  it  in  the  delightful  French  cafe — 
is  enough  to  bring  on  the  exposure.  All  the  people  on 
board  existed  under  a  sense  of  false  security.  How 
false,  it  has  been  sufficiently  demonstrated.  And  the 
fact  which  seems  undoubted,  that  some  of  them  actually 
were  reluctant  to  enter  the  boats,  when  told  to  do  so, 
shows  the  strength  of  that  falsehood.  Incidentally,  it 
shows  also  the  sort  of  discipline  on  board  these  ships. 


224        NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

the  sort  of  hold  kept  on  the  passengers  in  the  face  of  the 
unforgiving  sea.  These  people  seemed  to  imagine  it  an 
optional  matter:  whereas  the  order  to  leave  the  ship 
should  be  an  order  of  the  sternest  character,  to  be 
obeyed  unquestioningly  and  promptly  by  every  one  on 
board,  with  men  to  enforce  it  at  once,  and  to  carry  it 
out  methodically  and  swiftly.  And  it  is  no  use  to  say 
it  cannot  be  done,  for  it  can.  It  has  been  done.  The 
only  requisite  is  manageableness  of  the  ship  herself  and 
of  the  numbers  she  carries  on  board.  That  is  the  great 
thing  which  makes  for  safety.  A  commander  should 
be  able  to  hold  his  ship  and  everything  on  board  of  her 
in  the  hollow  of  his  hand,  as  it  were.  But  witli  the 
modern  foolish  trust  in  material,  and  with  those  floatmg 
hotels,  this  has  become  impossible.  A  man  may  do  his 
best,  but  he  cannot  succeed  in  a  task  which  from  greed, 
or  more  likely  from  sheer  stupidity,  has  been  made  too 
great  for  anybody's  strength. 

The  readers  of  The  English  Review,  who  cast  a 
friendly  eye  nearly  six  years  ago  on  my  Reminiscences, 
and  know  how  much  the  merchant  service,  ships  and 
men,  has  been  to  me,  will  understand  my  indignation 
that  those  men  of  whom  (speaking  in  no  sentimental 
phrase,  but  in  the  very  truth  of  feeling)  I  can't  even 
now  think  otherwise  than  as  brothers,  h^ve  been  put  by 
their  commercial  employers  in  the  impossibility  to  per- 
form eflSciently  their  plain  duty;  and  this  from  motives 
which  I  shall  not  enumerate  here,  but  whose  intrmsic 
un worthiness  is  plainly  revealed  by  the  greatness,  the 
miserable  greatness,  of  that  disaster.  Some  of  them 
have  perished.  To  die  for  commerce  is  hard  enough, 
but  to  go  under  that  sea  we  have  been  trained  to  com- 
bat, with  a  sense  of  failure  in  the  supreme  duty  of  one's 
calling  is  indeed  a  bitter  fate.  Thus  they  are  gone,  and 
the  responsibility  remams  with  the  living  who  will  have 


THE  LOSS  OF  THE  TITANIC  225 

no  difficulty  in  replacing  them  by  others,  just  as  good, 
at  the  same  wages.  It  was  their  bitter  fate.  But  I, 
who  can  look  at  some  arduous  years  when  their  duty 
was  my  duty  too,  and  their  feelings  were  my  feelings, 
can  remember  some  of  us  who  once  upon  a  time  were 
more  fortunate. 

It  is  of  them  that  I  would  talk  a  little,  for  my  own 
comfort  partly,  and  also  because  I  am  sticking  all  the 
time  to  my  subject  to  illustrate  my  point,  the  point  of 
manageableness  which  I  have  raised  just  now.  Since 
the  memory  of  the  lucky  Aiizona  has  been  evoked  by 
others  than  myself,  and  made  use  of  by  me  for  my  own 
purpose,  let  me  call  up  the  ghost  of  another  ship  of  that 
distant  day  whose  less  lucky  destiny  inculcates  another 
lesson  making  for  my  argument.  The  Douro,  a  ship 
belonging  to  the  Royal  Mail  Steam  Packet  Company, 
v,as  rather  less  than  one-tenth  the  measurement  of  the 
Titanic.  Yet,  strange  as  it  may  appear  to  the  ineffa- 
ble hotel  exquisites  who  form  the  bulk  of  the  first-class 
Cross- Atlantic  Passengers,  people  of  position  and  wealth 
and  refinement  did  not  consider  it  an  intolerable  hard- 
ship to  travel  in  her,  even  all  the  way  from  South  Amer- 
ica, this  being  the  service  she  was  engaged  upon.  Of 
her  speed  I  know  nothing,  but  it  must  have  been  the 
average  of  the  period,  and  the  decorations  of  her  saloons 
were,  I  daresay,  quite  up  to  the  mark;  but  I  doubt  if  her 
birth  had  been  boastfully  paragraphed  all  round  the 
Press,  because  that  was  not  the  fashion  of  the  time.  She 
was  not  a  mass  of  material  gorgeously  furnished  and 
upholstered.  She  was  a  ship.  And  she  was  not,  in  the 
apt  words  of  an  article  by  Commander  C.  Crutchley, 
R.N.R.,  which  I  have  just  read,  "run  by  a  sort  of  hotel 
syndicate  composed  of  the  Chief  Engineer,  the  Purser, 
and  the  Captain,"  as  these  monstrous  Atlantic  ferries 
are.    She  was  really  commanded,  manned,  and  equipped 


226        NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

as  a  ship  meant  to  keep  the  sea:  a  ship  first  and  last 
in  the  fullest  meaning  cf  the  term,  as  the  fact  I  am  going 
to  relate  will  show. 

She  was  off  the  Spanish  coast,  homeward  bound,  and 
fairly  full,  just  like  the  Titanic;  and  further,  the  propor- 
tion of  her  crew,  to  her  passengers,  I  remember  quite 
well,  was  very  much  the  same.  The  exact  number  of 
souls  on  board  I  have  forgotten.  It  might  have  been 
nearly  three  hundred,  certainly  not  more.  The  night 
was  moonlit,  but  hazy,  the  weather  fine  with  a  heavy 
swell  running  from  the  westward,  which  means  that  she 
must  have  been  rolling  a  great  deal,  and  in  that  respect 
the  conditions  for  her  were  worse  than  in  the  case  of 
the  Titanic.  Some  time  either  just  before  or  just  after 
midnight,  to  the  best  of  my  recollection,  she  was  run 
into  amidships  and  at  right  angles  by  a  large  steamer 
which  after  the  blow  backed  out,  and,  herself  appar- 
ently damaged,  remained  motionless  at  some  distance. 

Mv  recollection  is  that  the  Douro  remained  afloat 
after  the  collision  for  fifteen  minutes  or  thereabouts. 
It  might  have  been  twenty,  but  certainly  something 
under  the  half-hour.  In  that  time  the  boats  were 
lowered,  all  the  passengers  put  into  them,  and  the  lot 
shoved  off.  There  was  no  time  to  do  anything  more. 
All  the  crew  of  the  Douro  went  down  with  her,  literally 
without  a  murmur.  When  she  went  she  plunged  bodily 
down  like  a  stone.  The  only  members  of  the  ship's 
company  who  survived  were  the  third  officer,  who  was 
from  the  first  ordered  to  take  charge  of  the  boats,  and 
the  seamen  told  off  to  man  them,  two  in  each.  No- 
body else  was  picked  up.  A  quartermaster,  one  of  the 
saved  in  the  way  of  duty,  with  whom  I  talked  a  month 
or  so  afterwards,  told  me  that  they  pulled  up  to  the 
spot,  but  could  neither  see  a  head  nor  hear  the  faintest 
cry. 


THE  LOSS  OF  THE  TITANIC  227 

But  I  have  forgotten.  A  passenger  was  drowned. 
She  was  a  lady's  maid  who,  frenzied  with  terror,  refused 
to  leave  the  ship.  One  of  the  boats  waited  near  by  till 
the  chief  officer,  finding  himself  absolutely  unable  to 
tear  the  girl  away  from  the  rail  to  which  she  clung  with 
a  frantic  grasp,  ordered  the  boat  away  out  of  danger. 
My  quartermaster  told  me  that  he  spoke  over  to  them 
in  his  ordinary  voice,  and  this  was  the  last  sound  heard 
before  the  ship  sank. 

The  rest  is  silence.  I  daresay  there  was  the  usual 
official  inquiry,  but  who  cared  for  it.'^  That  sort  of 
thing  speaks  for  itself  with  no  uncertain  voice;  though 
the  papers,  I  remember,  gave  the  event  no  space  to 
speak  of:  no  large  headlines — no  headlines  at  all.  You 
see  it  was  not  the  fashion  at  the  time.  A  seaman-like 
piece  of  work,  of  which  one  cherishes  the  old  memory 
at  this  juncture  more  than  ever  before.  She  was  a  ship 
commanded,  manned,  equipped — not  a  sort  of  marine 
Ritz,  proclaimed  unsinkable  and  sent  adrift  with  its 
casual  population  upon  the  sea,  without  enough  boats, 
without  enough  seamen  (but  with  a  Parisian  cafe  and 
four  hundred  of  poor  devils  of  waiters)  to  meet  dangers 
which,  let  the  engineers  say  what  they  like,  lurk  always 
amongst  the  waves,  sent  with  a  blind  trust  in  mere 
material,  light-heartedly,  to  a  most  miserable,  most 
fatuous  disaster. 

And  there  are,  too,  many  ugly  developments  about  this 
tragedy.  The  rush  of  the  senatorial  inquiry  before  the 
poor  wretches  escaped  from  the  jaws  of  death  had  time 
to  draw  breath ;  the  vituperative  abuse  of  a  man  no  more 
guilty  than  others  in  this  matter,  and  the  suspicion  of 
this  aimless  fuss  being  a  political  move  to  get  home 
on  the  M.  T.  Company,  into  which,  in  common  parlance, 
the  United  States  Government  has  got  its  knife;  I 
don't  pretend  to  understand  why,  though  with  the  rest 


228        NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

of  the  world  I  am  aware  of  the  fact.  Perhaps  there 
may  be  an  excellent  and  worthy  reason  for  it;  but  I 
venture  to  suggest  that  to  take  advantage  of  so  many 
pitiful  corpses,  is  not  pretty.  And  the  exploiting  of 
the  mere  sensation  on  the  other  side  is  not  pretty  in  its 
wealth  of  heartless  inventions.  Neither  is  the  welter 
of  Marconi  lies  which  has  not  been  sent  vibrating  with- 
out some  reason,  for  which  it  would  be  nauseous  to 
inquire  too  closely.  And  the  calumnious,  baseless, 
gratuitous,  circumstantial  lie  charging  poor  Captain 
Smith  with  desertion  of  his  post  by  means  of  suicide 
is  the  vilest  and  most  ugly  thing  of  all  in  this  outburst 
of  journalistic  enterprise,  without  feeling,  without  hon- 
our, without  decency. 

But  all  this  has  its  moral.  And  that  other  sinking 
which  I  have  related  here  and  to  the  memory  of  which 
a  seaman  turns  with  relief  and  thankfulness  has  its 
moral  too.  Yes,  material  may  fail,  and  men,  too,  may 
fail  sometimes;  but  more  often  men,  when  they  are 
given  the  chance,  will  prove  themselves  truer  than 
steel,  that  wonderful  thin  steel  from  which  the  sides 
and  the  bulkheads  of  our  modern  sea-leviathans  are 
made. 


CERTAIN  ASPECTS  OF 

THE  ADMIRABLE  INQUIRY  INTO 

THE  LOSS  OF  THE  TITANIC 

1912 

I  HAVE  been  taken  to  task  by  a  friend  of  mine  on  the 
"other  side"  for  my  strictures  on  Senator  Smith's  in- 
^•estigation  into  the  loss  of  the  Titanic,  in  the  number 
of  The  English  Review  for  May,  1912.  I  will  admit  that 
the  motives  of  the  investigation  may  have  been  excel- 
lent, and  probably  were;  my  criticism  bore  mainly  on 
matters  of  form  and  also  on  the  point  of  efficiency.  In 
that  respect  I  have  nothing  to  retract.  The  Senators 
of  the  Commission  had  absolutely  no  knowledge  and  no 
practice  to  guide  them  in  the  conduct  of  such  an  in- 
vestigation; and  this  fact  gave  an  air  of  unreality  to 
their  zealous  exertions.  I  think  that  even  in  the 
United  States  there  is  some  regret  that  this  zeal  of 
theirs  was  not  tempered  by  a  large  dose  of  wisdom.  It 
is  fitting  that  people  who  rush  with  such  ardour  to  tlie 
work  of  putting  questions  to  men  yet  gasping  from  a 
narrow  escape  should  have,  I  wouldn't  say  a  tincture  of 
technical  information,  but  enough  knowledge  of  the 
subject  to  direct  the  trend  of  their  inquiry.  The  news- 
papers of  two  continents  have  noted  the  remarks  of  the 
President  of  the  Senatorial  Commission  with  comments 
which  I  will  not  reproduce  here,  having  a  scant  respect 
for  the  "organs  of  public  opinion,"  as  they  fondly 
believe  tliemselves  to  be.  The  absolute  value  of  their 
remarks  was  about  as  great  as  the  value  of  the  investiga- 


230        NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

tioii  they  either  mocked  at  or  extolled.  To  the  United 
States  Senate  I  did  not  intend  to  be  disrespectful.  \ 
have  for  that  body,  of  which  one  hears  mostly  in  con- 
nection with  tariffs,  as  much  reverence  as  the  best  ot 
Americans.  To  manifest  more  or  less  would  be  an 
impertinence  in  a  stranger.  I  have  expressed  myself 
with  less  reserve  on  our  Board  of  Trade.  That  was 
done  under  the  influence  of  warm  feelings.  We  were 
all  feeling  warmly  on  the  matter  at  that  time.  But,  at 
any  rate,  our  Board  of  Trade  inquiry,  conducted  by  an 
experienced  President,  discovered  a  very  interesting 
fact  on  the  very  second  day  of  its  sitting:  the  fact  that 
the  water-tight  doors  in  the  bulkheads  of  that  wonder 
of  naval  architecture  could  be  opened  down  below  by 
any  ii-responsible  person.  Thus  the  famous  closing 
apparatus  on  the  bridge,  paraded  as  a  device  of  greater 
safety,  with  its  attachments  of  warning  bells,  coloured 
lights,  and  all  these  pretty-pretties,  was,  in  the  case  of 
this  ship,  little  better  than  a  technical  farce. 

It  is  amusing,  if  anything  connected  with  this 
stupid  catastrophe  can  be  amusing,  to  see  the  secretly 
crestfallen  attitude  of  technicians.  They  are  the  high 
priests  of  the  modern  cult  of  perfected  material  and  of 
mechanical  appliances,  and  would  fain  forbid  the 
profane  from  inquirmg  into  its  mysteries.  We  are  the 
masters  of  progress,  they  say,  and  you  should  remain 
respectfully  silent,  ^nd  they  take  refuge  behind  their 
mathematics.  I  have  the  greatest  regard  for  mathe- 
matics as  an  exercise  of  mind.  It  is  the  only  manner  of 
thinking  whicli  approaches  the  Divine.  But  mere 
calculations,  of  which  these  men  make  so  much,  when 
unassisted  by  imagination  and  when  they  have  gained 
mastery  over  common  sense,  are  the  most  deceptive 
exercises  of  intellect.  Two  and  two  are  four,  and  two 
are  six.     That  is  immutable;  you  may  trust  your  soul  to 


THE  TITANIC  INQUIRY  231 

that;  but  you  must  be  certain  first  of  your  quantities. 
I  know  bow  tlie  strength  of  materials  can  be  calculated 
away,  and  also  the  evidence  of  one's  senses.  For  it  is 
by  some  sort  of  calculation  involving  weights  and  levels 
that  the  technicians  responsible  for  the  Titanic  per- 
suaded themselves  that  a  ship  not  divided  by  water- 
tight compartments  could  be  "unsinkable."  Because, 
you  know,  she  was  not  divided.  You  and  I,  and  our 
little  boys,  when  we  want  to  divide,  say,  a  box,  take 
care  to  procure  a  piece  of  wood  which  will  reach  from 
tlie  bottom  to  the  hd.  We  know  that  if  it  does  not 
reach  all  the  way  up  the  box  will  not  be  divided  into  two 
compartments.  It  will  be  only  "partly  divided.  The 
Titanic  was  only  partly  divided.  She  was  just  sufii- 
ciently  divided  to  drown  some  poor  devils  lilte  rats  in  a 
trap.  It  is  probable  that  they  would  have  perished  in 
any  case,  but  it  is  a  particularly  horrible  fate  to  die 
boxed  up  like  this.  Yes,  she  was  sufficiently  divided  for 
that,  but  not  sufficiently  divided  to  prevent  the  w^ater 
flowing  over. 

Therefore  to  a  plain  man  who  knows  something  of 
mathematics  but  is  not  bemused  by  calculations,  she 
was,  from  the  point  of  view  of  "unsinkability,"  not 
divided  at  all.  \\Tiat  would  you  say  of  people  who 
would  boast  of  a  fireproof  building,  an  hotel,  for  instance, 
saying,  "Oh,  we  have  it  divided  by  fireproof  bulkheads 
which  would  localise  any  outbreak,"  and  if  you  v/ere 
to  discover  on  closer  inspection  that  these  bulklieads 
closed  no  more  than  two-thirds  of  tlie  openings  they 
were  meant  to  close,  leaving  above  an  open  space 
through  which  draught,  sm.oke,  and  fire  could  rush  from 
one  end  of  the  building  to  the  other?  And,  furthermore, 
that  those  partitions,  being  too  high  to  climb  over,  the 
people  confined  in  each  menaced  compartment  had  to 
stay  there  and  become  asphyxiated  or  roasted,  because 


232        NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

no  exits  to  tlie  outside,  say  to  the  roof,  had  been 
provided !  What  would  you  think  of  the  intelHgence  or 
candour  of  these  advertising  people?  "What  would  you 
think  of  them?  And  yet,  apart  from  the  obvious 
difference  in  the  action  of  fire  and  water,  the  cases  are 
essentially  the  same. 

It  would  strike  you  and  me  and  our  little  boys  (who 
are  not  engineers  yet)  that  to  approach — I  won't  say 
attain — somewhere  near  absolute  safety,  the  divisions  to 
keep  out  water  should  extend  from  the  bottom  right  up 
to  the  uppermost  deck  of  the  hull.  I  repeat,  the  hulU 
because  there  are  above  the  hull  the  decks  of  the  super- 
structures of  which  we  need  not  take  account.  And 
further,  as  a  provision  of  the  commonest  humanity, 
that  each  of  these  compartments  should  have  a  per- 
fectly independent  and  free  access  to  that  uppermost 
deck:  that  is,  into  the  open.  Nothing  less  will  do. 
Division  by  bulkheads  that  really  divide,  and  free 
access  to  the  deck  from  every  water-tight  compart- 
ment. Then  the  responsible  man  in  the  moment  of 
danger  and  in  the  exercise  of  his  judgment  could  close 
all  the  doors  of  these  water-tight  bulkheads  by  whatever 
clever  contrivance  has  been  invented  for  the  purpose, 
without  a  qualm  at  the  awful  thought  that  he  may  be 
shutting  up  some  of  his  fellow  creatures  in  a  death- 
trap; that  he  may  be  sacrificing  the  lives  of  men  who, 
down  there,  are  sticking  to  the  posts  of  duty  as  the 
engine-room  staffs  of  the  Merchant  Service  have  never 
failed  to  do.  I  know  very  well  that  the  engineers  of  a 
ship  in  a  moment  of  emergency  are  not  quaking  for 
their  lives,  but,  as  far  as  I  have  known  them,  attend 
calmly  to  their  duty.  W^e  all  must  die;  but,  hang  it  all, 
a  man  ought  to  be  given  a  chance,  if  not  for  his  life, 
then  at  least  to  die  decently.  It's  bad  enough  to  have 
to  stick  down  there  when  something  disastrous  is  going 


THE   TITANIC  INQUIRY  233 

on  and  any  moment  may  be  your  last;  but  to  be 
drowned  shut  up  under  deck  is  too  bad.  Some  men  of 
the  Titanic  died  like  that,  it  is  to  be  feared.  Compart- 
mented,  so  to  speak.  Just  think  what  it  means !  Noth- 
ing can  approach  the  horror  of  that  fate  except  being 
buried  alive  in  a  cave,  or  in  a  mine,  or  in  your  family 
vault. 

So,  once  more:  continuous  bulkheads — a  clear  wav 
of  escape  to  the  deck  out  of  each  water-tight  compart- 
ment. Nothing  less.  And  if  specialists,  the  precious 
specialists  of  the  sort  that  builds  "unsinkable  ships," 
tell  you  that  it  cannot  be  done,  don't  you  believe  them. 
It  can  be  done,  and  they  are  quite  clever  enough  to  do  it 
too.  The  objections  they  will  raise,  however  disguised 
in  the  solemn  mystery  of  technical  phrases,  will  not  be 
technical,  but  commercial.  I  assure  you  that  there  is 
not  much  mystery  about  a  ship  of  that  sort.  She  is  a 
tank.  She  is  a  tank  ribbed,  joisted,  stayed,  but  she  is 
no  greater  mystery  than  a  tank.  The  Titanic  was  a  tank 
eight  hundred  feet  long,  fitted  as  an  hotel,  with  corri- 
dors, bedrooms,  halls,  and  so  on  (not  a  very  mysterious 
arrangement  truly) ,  and  for  the  hazards  of  her  existence 
I  should  think  about  as  strong  as  a  Huntley  and  Palmer 
biscuit-tin.  I  make  this  comparison  because  Huntley 
and  Palmer  biscuit-tins,  being  almost  a  national  institu- 
tion, are  probably  known  to  all  my  readers.  Well, 
about  that  strong,  and  perhaps  not  quite  so  strong. 
Just  look  at  the  side  of  such  a  tin,  and  then  think  of  a 
50,000  ton  ship,  and  try  to  imagine  what  the  thickness 
of  her  plates  should  be  to  approach  anywhere  the 
relative  solidity  of  that  biscuit- tin.  In  my  varied  and 
adventurous  career  I  have  been  thrilled  by  the  sight  of  a 
Huntley  and  Palmer  biscuit-tin  kicked  by  a  mule  sky- 
high,  as  the  saying  is.  It  came  back  to  earth  smiling, 
with  only  a  sort  of  dimple  on  one  of  its  cheeks.     A  pro- 


234,        NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

portionately  severe  blow  would  have  burst  tbe  side  ot 
the  Titanic  or  any  other  "triumph  of  modern  naval 
architecture"  like  bro^vn  paper — I  am  willing  to  bet. 

I  am  not  saying  this  by  way  of  disparagement. 
There  is  reason  in  things.  You  can't  make  a  50,000  ton 
ship  as  strong  as  a  Huntley  and  Palmer  biscuit- tin.  But 
there  is  also  reason  in  the  way  one  accepts  facts,  and  I 
refuse  to  be  awed  by  the  size  of  a  tank  bigger  than  any 
other  tank  that  ever  went  afloat  to  its  doom.  The  people 
responsible  for  her,  though  disconcerted  in  their  hearts 
by  the  exposure  of  that  disaster,  are  giving  themselves 
airs  of  superiority — priests  of  an  Oracle  which  has  failed, 
but  still  must  remain  the  Oracle.  The  assumption  is 
that  they  are  ministers  of  progress.  But  the  mere 
increase  of  size  is  not  progress.  If  it  were,  elephantiasis 
wliich  causes  a  man's  legs  to  become  as  large  as  tree- 
trunks,  would  be  a  sort  of  progress,  whereas  it  is  nothing 
but  a  very  ugly  disease.  Yet  directly  this  very  dis- 
concerting catastrophe  happened,  the  servants  of  the 
silly  Oracle  began  to  cry,  "It's  no  use!  You  can't 
resist  progress.  The  big  ship  has  come  to  stay." 
Well,  let  her  stay  on,  then,  in  God's  name!  But  she 
isn't  a  servant  of  progress  in  any  sense.  She  is  the 
servant  of  commercialism.  For  progress,  if  dealing 
with  the  problems  of  a  material  world,  has  some  sort  of 
moral  aspect — if  only,  say,  that  of  conquest,  which  has 
its  distinct  value  since  man  is  a  conquering  animal.  But 
bigness  is  mere  exaggeration.  The  men  responsible  for 
these  big  ships  have  been  moved  by  considerations  of 
profit  to  be  made  by  the  questionable  means  of  pander- 
ing to  an  absurd  and  vulgar  demand  for  banal  luxury 
— the  seaside  hotel  luxury.  One  even  asks  oneself 
whether  there  was  such  a  demand.''  It  is  inconceivable 
to  think  that  there  are  people  who  can't  spend  five  days 
of  their  life  without  a  suite  of  apartments,  cafes,  bands. 


THE  TITANIC  INQUIRY  2S5 

and  cuch-Iike  refined  delights.  I  suspect  that  the 
public  is  not  so  very  guilty  in  this  matter.  These 
things  were  pushed  on  to  it  in  the  usual  course  of  trade 
competition.  If  to-morrow  you  were  to  take  all  these 
luxuries  away,  the  public  would  still  travel.  I  don't 
despair  of  mankind.  I  believe  that  if  by  some  catas- 
trophic miracle  all  ships  of  every  kind  were  to  disappear 
off  the  face  of  the  waters,  together  with  the  means  of 
replacing  them,  there  would  be  found,  before  the  end  of 
the  week,  m.en  (millionaires,  perhaps)  cheerfully  putting 
out  to  sea  in  bath-tubs  for  a  fresh  start.  We  are  all  like 
that.  This  sort  of  spirit  lives  in  mankind  still  uncor- 
rupted  by  the  so-called  refinements,  the  ingenuity  of 
tradesmen,  who  look  always  for  something  new  to  sell, 
offers  to  the  public. 

Let  her  stay, — I  mean  the  big  ship — since  she  has 
come  to  stay.  I  only  object  to  the  attitude  cf  the 
people,  who,  having  called  her  into  being  and  having 
romanced  (to  speak  politely)  about  her,  assume  a 
detached  sort  of  superiority,  goodness  only  knows  why, 
and  raise  difficulties  in  the  way  of  every  suggestion- 
difficulties  about  boats,  about  bulkheads,  about  dis- 
cipline, about  davits,  all  sorts  of  difficulties.  To  most  of 
them  the  only  answer  would  be:  "VvTiere  there's  a  will 
there's  a  way" — the  most  wise  of  proverbs.  But  some 
of  these  objections  are  really  too  stupid  for  anything.  I 
shall  try  to  give  an  instance  of  what  I  mean. 

This  Inquiry  is  admirably  conducted.  I  am  not 
alluding  to  the  lawyers  representing  "various  interests," 
who  are  trying  to  earn  their  fees  by  casting  all  sorts  of 
mean  aspersions  on  the  characters  of  all  sorts  of  people 
not  a  bit  worse  than  themselves.  It  is  honest  to  give 
value  for  your  wages;  and  the  "bravos"  of  ancient 
Venice  who  kept  their  stilettos  in  good  order  and  never 
failed  to  deliver  the  stab  bargained  for  with  their  em- 


^36        NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

ployers,  considered  tliemselves  an  honest  body  of 
professional  men,  no  doubt.  But  they  don't  compel  my 
admiration,  whereas  the  conduct  of  this  Inquiry  does. 
And  as  it  is  pretty  certain  to  be  attacked,  I  take  this 
opportunity  to  deposit  here  my  nickel  of  appreciation. 
Well,  lately,  there  came  before  it  witnesses  responsible 
for  the  designing  of  the  ship.  One  of  them  was  asked 
whether  it  would  not  be  advisable  to  make  each  coal- 
bunker  of  the  ship  a  water-tight  compartment  by  means 
of  a  suitable  door. 

The  answer  to  such  a  question  should  have  been, 
"Certainly,"  for  it  is  obvious  to  the  simplest  intelli- 
gence that  the  more  water-tight  spaces  you  provide 
in  a  ship  (consistently  with  having  her  workable)  the 
nearer  you  approach  safety.  But  instead  of  admitting 
the  expediency  of  the  suggestion,  this  witness  at  once 
raised  an  objection  as  to  the  possibility  of  closing 
tightly  the  door  of  a  bunker  on  account  of  the  slope  of 
coal.  This  with  the  true  expert's  attitude  of  "My  dear 
man,  you  don't  know  what  you  are  talking  about." 

Now  would  you  believe  that  the  objection  put  for- 
ward was  absolutely  f utile .^^  I  don't  know  whether  the 
distinguished  President  of  the  Court  perceived  this. 
Very  likely  he  did,  though  I  don't  suppose  he  was  ever 
on  terms  of  familiarity  with  a  ship's  bunker.  But  I  have. 
I  have  been  inside;  and  you  may  take  it  that  what  I  say 
of  them  is  correct.  I  don't  wish  to  be  wearisome  to  the 
benevolent  reader,  but  I  want  to  put  his  finger,  so  to 
speak,  on  the  inanity  of  the  objection  raised  by  the 
expert.  A  bunker  is  an  enclosed  space  for  holding 
coals,  generally  located  against  the  ship's  side,  and 
having  an  opening,  a  doorway  in  fact,  into  the  stoke- 
hold. Men  called  trimmers  go  in  there,  and  by  means 
of  implements  called  slices  make  the  coal  run  through 
that  opening  on  to  the  floor  of  the  stokehold,  where  it  is 


THE  TITANIC  INQUIRY  237 

within  reach  of  the  stokers'  (firemen's)  shovels.  This 
being  so,  you  will  easily  understand  that  there  is  con- 
stantly a  more  or  less  thick  layer  of  coal  generally 
shaped  in  a  slope  lying  in  that  doorway.  And  the 
objection  of  the  expert  was:  that  because  of  this  ob- 
struction it  would  be  impossible  to  close  the  water-tight 
door,  and  therefore  that  the  thing  could  not  be  done. 
And  that  objection  was  inane.  A  water-tight  door  in 
a  bulkhead  may  be  defined  as  a  metal  plate  which  is 
made  to  close  a  given  opening  by  some  mechanical 
means.  And  if  there  were  a  law  of  Medes  and 
Persians  that  a  water-tight  door  should  always  slide 
downwards  and  never  otherwise,  the  objection  would 
be  to  a  great  extent  valid.  But  what  is  there  to  pre- 
vent those  doors  to  be  fitted  so  as  to  move  upwards, 
or  horizontally,  or  slantwise.'^  In  which  case  they 
would  go  through  the  obstructing  layer  of  coal  as  easily 
as  a  knife  goes  through  butter.  Any  one  may  convince 
himself  of  it  by  experimenting  with  a  light  piece  of 
board  and  a  heap  of  stones  anywhere  along  our  roads. 
Probably  the  joint  of  such  a  door  would  weep  a  little 
— and  there  is  no  necessity  for  its  being  hermetically 
tight — but  the  object  of  converting  bunkers  into  spaces 
of  safety  would  be  attained.  You  may  take  my  word 
for  it  that  this  could  be  done  without  any  great  effort  of 
ingenuity.  And  that  is  why  I  have  qualified  the  ex- 
pert's objection  as  inane. 

Of  course,  these  doors  must  not  be  operated  from  the 
bridge  because  of  the  risk  of  trapping  the  coal-trimmers 
inside  the  bunker;  but  on  the  signal  of  all  other  water- 
tight doors  in  the  ship  being  closed  (as  would  be  done  in 
case  of  a  collision)  they  too  could  be  closed  on  the  order 
of  the  engineer  of  the  watch,  who  would  see  to  the  safety 
of  the  trimmers.  If  the  rent  in  the  ship's  side  were 
within  the  bunker  itself,  that  would  become  manifest 


238        NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

enough  without  any  signal,  and  the  rush  of  water  into 
the  stokehold  could  be  cut  off  directly  the  doorplate 
came  into  its  place.  Say  a  minute  at  the  very  outside. 
Naturally,  if  the  blow  of  a  right-angled  collision,  for 
instance,  were  heavy  enough  to  smash  through  the 
inner  bulkhead  of  the  bunker,  why,  there  would  be  then 
nothing  to  do  but  for  the  stokers  and  trimmers  and 
everybody  in  there  to  clear  out  of  the  stoke-room.  But 
that  does  not  mean  that  the  precaution  of  having  water- 
tight doors  to  the  bunkers  is  useless,  superfluous,  or 
impossible.^ 

And  talking  of  stokeholds,  firemen,  and  trimmers, 
men  whose  heavy  labour  has  not  a  single  redeeming 
feature;  which  is  unhealthy,  uninspiring,  arduous,  with- 
out the  reward  of  personal  pride  in  it;  sheer,  hard, 
brutalising  toil,  belonging  neither  to  earth  nor  sea,  I 
greet  with  joy  the  advent  for  marine  purposes  of  the 
internal  combustion  engine.  The  disappearance  of  the 
marine  boiler  will  be  a  real  progress,  which  anybody  in 
sympathy  with  his  kind  must  welcome.  Instead  of  the 
unthrifty,  unruly,  nondescript  crowd  the  boilers  re- 
quire, a  crowd  of  men  in  the  ship  but  not  of  her,  Vv^e  shall 
have  comparatively  small  crews  of  disciplined,  intelli- 
gent workers,  able  to  steer  the  ship,  handle  anchors, 
man  boats,  and  at  the  same  time  competent  to  take 
their  place  at  a  bench  as  fitters  and  repairers;  the  re- 
sourceful and  skilled  seamen-mechanics  of  the  future, 
the  legitimate  successors  of  these  seamen-sailors  of  the 
past,  who  had  their  own  kind  of  skill,  hardihood,  and 
tradition  and  whose  last  days  it  has  been  my  lot  to 
share. 

One  lives  and  learns  and  hears  very  surprising  things 
■ — things  that  one  hardly  knows  how  to  take,  whether 

^   ■    ' 

'  Since  writing  the  above,  I  am  told  that  such  doors  are  fitted  in  the  buukcrs 
of  more  than  one  ship  in  the  Atlantic  trade. 


THE  TITANIC  INQUIRY  239 

seriously  or  jocularly,  how  to  meet — with  indignation 
or  with  contempt?  Things  said  by  solemn  experts,  by 
exalted  directors,  by  glorified  ticket-sellers,  by  officials 
of  all  sorts.  I  suppose  that  one  of  the  uses  of  such  an 
inquiry  is  to  give  such  people  enough  rope  to  hang 
themselves  with.  And  I  hope  that  some  of  them  won't 
neglect  to  do  so.  One  of  them  declared  two  days  ago 
that  there  was  "nothing  to  learn  from  the  catastrophe 
of  the  Titanic.''''  That  he  had  been  "giving  his  best 
consideration"  to  certain  rules  for  ten  years,  and  had 
come  to  the  conclusion  that  nothing  ever  happened  at 
sea,  and  that  rules  and  regulations,  boats  and  sailors, 
were  unnecessary;  that  what  was  really  wrong  with 
the  Titanic  was  that  she  carried  too  many  boats. 

No;  I  am  not  joking.  If  you  don't  believe  me,  pray 
look  back  through  the  reports  and  you  will  find  it  all 
there.  I  don't  recollect  the  official's  name,  but  it  ought 
to  have  been  Pooh-Bah.  Well,  Pooh-Bah  said  all  these 
things,  and  v/hen  asked  whether  he  really  meant  it, 
intimated  his  readiness  to  give  the  subject  more  of  "his 
best  consideration  "—for  another  ten  years  or  so  ap- 
parently— but  he  believed,  oh  yes!  he  was  certain,  that 
had  there  been  fewer  boats  there  would  have  been  more 
people  saved.  Really,  when  reading  the  report  of  this 
admirably  conducted  Inquiry  one  isn't  certain  at  times 
whether  it  is  an  Admirable  Inquiry  or  a  felicitous 
opera-bouffe  of  the  Gilbertian  type — with  a  rather  grim 
subject,  to  be  sure. 

Yes,  rather  grim — but  the  comic  treatment  never 
fails.  My  readers  will  remember  that  in  the  number  of 
The  English  Revieio  for  May,  1912, 1  quoted  the  old  case 
of  the  Arizona,  and  went  on  from  that  to  prophesy  the 
coming  of  a  new  seamanship  (in  a  spirit  of  irony  far 
removed  from  fun)  at  the  call  of  the  sublime  builders  of 
unsinkable  ships.     I  thought  that,  as  a  small  boy  of  my 


MO        NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

acquaintance  says,  I  was  "doing  a  sarcasm,"  and  re- 
garded it  as  a  rather  wild  sort  of  sarcasm  at  that.  Well, 
I  am  blessed  (excuse  the  vulgarism)  if  a  v/itness  has  not 
turned  up  who  seems  to  have  been  inspired  by  the  same 
thought,  and  evidently  longs  in  his  heart  for  the  advent 
of  the  new  seamanship.  He  is  an  expert,  of  course,  and 
I  rather  believe  he's  the  same  gentleman  who  did  not 
see  his  way  to  fit  water-tight  doors  to  bunkers.  With 
ludicrous  earnestness  he  assured  the  Commission  of 
his  intense  belief  that  had  only  the  Titanic  struck  end- 
on  she  would  have  come  into  port  all  right.  And 
in  the  whole  tone  of  his  insistent  statement  there  was 
suggested  the  regret  that  the  officer  in  charge  (who  is 
dead  now,  and  mercifully  outside  the  comic  scope  of  this 
Inquiry)  was  so  ill-advised  as  to  try  to  pass  clear  of  the 
ice.  Thus  my  sarcastic  prophecy,  that  such  a  sug- 
gestion was  sure  to  turn  up,  receives  an  unexpected 
fulfilment.  You  will  see  yet  that  in  deference  to  the  de- 
mands of  "progress"  the  theory  of  the  new  seamanship 
will  become  established:  "Whatever  you  see  in  front  of 
you — ram  it  fair  .  .  .  ."  The  new  seamanship! 
Looks  simple,  doesn't  it.^*  But  it  will  be  a  very  exact  art 
indeed.  The  proper  handling  of  an  unsinkable  ship, 
you  see,  will  demand  that  she  should  be  made  to  hit  the 
iceberg  very  accurately  with  her  nose,  because  should 
you  perchance  scrape  the  bluff  of  the  bow  instead,  she 
may,  without  ceasing  to  be  as  imsinkable  as  before,  find 
her  way  to  the  bottom.  I  congratulate  the  future 
Transatlantic  passengers  on  the  new  and  vigorous  sen- 
sations in  store  for  them.  They  shall  go  bounding  across 
from  iceberg  to  iceberg  at  twenty -five  knots  with  preci- 
sion and  safety,  and  a  "cheerful  bumpy  sound" — as  the 
immortal  poem  has  it.  It  will  be  a  teeth-loosening,  ex- 
hilarating experience.  The  decorations  will  be  Louis- 
Quinze,  of  course,  and  the  cafe  shall  remain  open  ^11 


THE  TITANIC  INQUIRY  241 

night.  But  what  about  the  priceless  Sevres  porcelain 
and  the  Venetian  glass  provided  for  the  service  of 
Transatlantic  passengers?  Well,  I  am  afraid  all  that 
will  have  to  be  replaced  by  silver  goblets  and  plates. 
Nasty,  common,  cheap  silver.  But  those  who  will  go 
to  sea  must  be  prepared  to  put  up  with  a  certain 
amount  of  hardship. 

And  there  shall  be  no  boats.  Why  should  there  be  no 
boats.f^  Because  Pooh-Bah  has  said  that  the  fewer  the 
boats,  the  more  people  can  be  saved;  and  therefore  with 
no  boats  at  all,  no  one  need  be  lost.  But  even  if  there 
was  a  flaw  in  this  argument,  pray  look  at  the  other 
advantages  the  absence  of  boats  gives  you.  There  can't 
be  the  annoyance  of  having  to  go  into  them  in  the 
middle  of  the  night,  and  the  unpleasantness,  after  saving 
your  life  by  the  skin  of  your  teeth,  of  being  hauled  over 
the  coals  by  irreproachable  members  of  the  Bar  with 
hints  that  you  are  no  better  than  a  cowardly  scoundrel 
and  your  wife  a  heartless  monster.  Less  Boats.  No 
boats !  Great  should  be  the  gratitude  of  passage-selling 
Combines  to  Pooh-Bah;  and  they  ought  to  cherish  his 
memory  when  he  dies.  But  no  fear  of  that.  His  kind 
never  dies.  All  you  have  to  do,  O  Combine,  is  to  knock 
at  the  door  of  the  Marine  Department,  look  in,  and 
beckon  to  the  first  man  you  see.  That  will  be  he,  very 
much  at  your  service — prepared  to  affirm  after  "ten 
years  of  my  best  consideration"  and  a  bundle  of  statis- 
tics in  hand,  that:  "There's  no  lesson  to  be  learned, 
and  that  there  is  nothing  to  be  done!" 

On  an  earlier  day  there  was  another  witness  before 
the  Court  of  Inquiry.  A  mighty  official  of  the  White 
Star  Line.  The  impression  of  his  testimony  which  the 
Report  gave  is  of  an  almost  scornful  impatience  with  all 
this  fuss  and  pother.  Boats !  Of  course  we  have  crowded 
our  decks  with  them  in  answer  to  this  ignorant  clamour. 


242        NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

Mere  lumber!  How  can  we  handle  so  many  boats  with 
our  davits?  Your  people  don't  know  the  conditions  of 
the  problem.  We  have  given  these  matters  our  best 
consideration,  and  we  have  done  what  we  thought 
reasonable.  We  have  done  more  than  our  duty.  We 
are  wise,  and  good,  and  impeccable.  And  whoever  says 
otherwise  is  either  ignorant  or  wicked. 

This  is  the  gist  of  these  scornful  ansv/ers  which  dis- 
close the  psychology  of  commercial  undertakings.  It  is 
the  same  psychology  which  fifty  or  so  years  ago,  before 
Samuel  PlimsoU  uplifted  his  voice,  sent  overloaded  ships 
to  sea.  "Why  shouldn't  we  cram  in  as  much  cargo  as 
our  ships  will  hold?  Look  how  few,  how  very  few  of 
them  get  lost,  after  all." 

Men  don't  change.  Not  very  much.  And  the  only 
answer  to  be  given  to  this  manager  who  came  out,  im- 
patient and  indignant,  from  behind  the  plate-glass 
windows  of  his  shop  to  be  discovered  by  this  Inquiry, 
and  to  tell  us  that  he,  they,  the  whole  three  million  (or 
thirty  million,  for  all  I  know)  capital  Organisation  for 
selling  passages,  has  considered  the  problem  of  boats — 
the  only  answer  to  give  him  is:  that  this  is  not  a  prob- 
lem of  boats  at  all.  It  is  the  problem  of  decent  be- 
haviour. If  you  can't  carry  or  handle  so  many  boats, 
then  don't  cram  quite  so  many  people  on  board.  It  is 
as  simple  as  that — this  problem  of  right  feeling  and 
right  conduct,  the  real  nature  of  which  seems  beyond 
the  comprehension  of  ticket-providers.  Don't  sell  so 
many  tickets,  my  virtuous  dignitary.  After  all,  men 
and  women  (unless  considered  from  a  purely  com- 
mercial point  of  view)  are  not  exactly  the  cattle  of  the 
Western-ocean  trade,  that  used  some  twenty  years  ago 
to  be  thrown  overboard  on  an  emergency  and  left  to 
swim  round  and  round  before  they  sank.  If  you  can't 
get  more  boats,  then  sell  less  tickets.     Don't  drown  so 


THE  TITANIC  INQUIRY  243 

many  people  on  the  finest,  calmest  night  that  was  ever 
known  in  the  North  Atlantic — even  if  you  have  pro- 
vided them  with  a  little  music  to  get  drowned  by.  Sell 
less  tickets!  That's  the  solution  of  the  problem,  your 
Mercantile  Highness. 

But  there  would  be  a  cry,  "Oh!  This  requires  con- 
sideration!" (Ten  years  of  it — eh.?)  Well,  no!  This 
does  not  require  consideration.  This  is  the  very  first 
thing  to  do.  At  once.  Limit  the  number  of  people 
by  the  boats  you  can  handle.  That's  honesty.  And 
then  you  may  go  on  fumbling  for  years  about  these 
precious  davits  which  are  such  a  stumbling-block  to  your 
humamt3^  These  fascinating  patent  davits.  These 
davits  that  refuse  to  do  three  times  as  much  work  as 
they  were  meant  to  do.  Oh!  The  wickedness  of  these 
davits! 

One  of  the  great  discoveries  of  this  admirable  Inquiry 
is  the  fascination  of  the  davits.  All  these  people 
positively  can't  get  away  from  them.  They  shujffle 
about  and  groan  around  their  davits.  Whereas  the 
obvious  thing  to  do  is  to  eliminate  the  man-handled 
davits  altogether.  Don't  you  think  that  with  all  th« 
mechanical  contrivances,  with  all  the  generated  power 
on  board  these  ships,  it  is  about  time  to  get  rid  of  th© 
hundred-years-old,  man -power  appliances.?  Cranes  are 
what  is  wanted,  low,  compact  cranes  with  adjustable 
heads,  one  to  each  set  of  six  or  nine  boats.  And  if 
people  tell  you  of  insuperable  difficulties,  if  they  tell 
you  of  the  swing  and  spin  of  spanned  boats,  don't  you 
believe  them.  The  heads  of  the  cranes  need  not  be  any 
higher  than  the  heads  of  the  davits.  The  lift  required 
would  be  only  a  couple  of  inches.  As  to  the  spin,  there 
is  a  way  to  prevent  that  if  you  have  in  each  boat  two 
men  who  know  what  they  are  about.  I  have  taken  up 
on  board  a  heavy  ship's  boat,  in  the  open  sea  (the  ship 


244        NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

rolling  heavily),  with  a  common  cargo  derrick.  And  a 
cargo  derrick  is  very  much  like  a  crane;  but  a  crane  de- 
vised ad  hoc  would  be  infinitely  easier  to  work.  We 
must  remember  that  the  loss  of  this  ship  has  altered  the 
moral  atmosphere.  As  long  as  the  Titanic  is  re- 
membered, an  ugly  rush  for  the  boats  may  be  feared 
in  case  of  some  accident.  You  can't  hope  to  drill  into 
perfect  discipline  a  casual  mob  of  six  hundred  firemen 
and  waiters,  but  in  a  ship  like  the  Titanic  you  can  keep 
on  a  permanent  trustworthy  crew  of  one  hundred  in- 
telligent seamen  and  mechanics  who  would  know  their 
stations  for  abandoning  ship  and  would  do  the  work 
efficiently.  The  boats  could  be  lowered  with  sufficient 
dispatch.  One  does  not  want  to  let  rip  one's  boats  by 
the  run  all  at  the  same  time.  With  six  boat-cranes, 
six  boats  would  be  simultaneously  swung,  filled,  and  got 
away  from  the  side;  and  if  any  sort  of  order  is  kept,  the 
ship  could  be  cleared  of  the  passengers  in  a  quite  short 
time.  For  there  must  be  boats  enough  for  the  passen- 
gers and  crew,  whether  you  increase  the  number  of 
boats  or  limit  the  number  of  passengers,  irrespective 
of  the  size  of  the  ship.  That  is  the  only  honest  course. 
Any  other  would  be  rather  worse  than  putting  sand  in 
the  sugar,  for  which  a  tradesman  gets  fined  or  im- 
prisoned. Do  not  let  us  take  a  romantic  view  of  the  so- 
called  progress.  A  company  selling  passages  is  a 
tradesman;  though  from  the  way  these  people  talk  and 
behave  you  would  think  they  are  benefactors  of  man- 
kind in  some  mysterious  way,  engaged  in  some  lofty 
and  amazing  enterprise. 

All  these  boats  should  have  a  motor-engine  in  them. 
And,  of  course,  the  glorified  tradesman,  the  mummified 
official,  the  technicians,  and  all  these  secretly  dis- 
concerted hangers-on  to  the  enormous  ticket-selling 
enterprise,  will  raise  objections  to  it  with  every  air  of 


THE  TITANIC  INQUIRY  245 

rtuperiority.  But  don't  believe  them.  Doesn't  it  strike 
you  as  absurd  that  in  this  age  of  mechanical  propulsion, 
of  generated  power,  the  boats  of  such  ultra-modem 
ships  are  fitted  with  oars  and  sails,  implements  more 
than  three  thousand  years  old?  Old  as  the  siege  of 
Troy.  Older!  .  .  .  And  I  know  what  I  am  talking 
about.  Only  six  weeks  ago  I  was  on  the  river  in  an 
ancient,  rough,  ship's  boat,  fitted  with  a  two-cylinder 
motor-engine  of  7|  h.p.  Just  a  common  ship's  boat, 
which  the  man  who  owns  her  uses  for  taking  the  work- 
men and  stevedores  to  and  from  the  ships  loading  at 
the  buoj^s  off  Greenhithe.  She  would  have  carried 
some  thirty  people.  No  doubt  has  carried  as  many 
daily  for  many  months.  And  she  can  tow  a  twenty- 
five  ton  water  barge — which  is  also  part  of  that  man's 
business. 

It  was  a  boisterous  day,  half  a  gale  of  wind  against 
the  flood  tide.  Two  fellows  managed  her.  A  young- 
ster of  seventeen  was  cox  (and  a  first-rate  cox  he  was 
too) ;  a  fellow  in  a  torn  blue  jersey,  not  much  older,  of 
the  usual  riverside  type,  looked  after  the  engine.  I 
spent  an  hour  and  a  half  in  her,  running  up  and  down 
and  across  that  reach.  She  handled  perfectly.  With 
eight  or  twelve  oars  out  she  could  not  have  done  any- 
thing like  as  well.  These  two  youngsters  at  my  re- 
quest kept  her  stationary  for  ten  minutes,  with  a  touch 
of  engine  and  helm  now  and  then,  w^ithin  three  feet  of  a 
big,  ugly  mooring  buoy  over  which  the  water  broke 
and  the  spray  flew  in  sheets,  and  which  would  have 
holed  her  if  she  had  bumped  against  it.  But  she  kept 
her  position,  it  seemed  to  me,  to  an  inch,  without 
apparently  any  trouble  to  these  boys.  You  could 
not  have  done  it  with  oars.  And  her  engine  did  not 
take  up  the  space  of  three  men,  even  on  the  assumption 
that  you  would  pack  people  as  tight  as  sardines  in  a  box. 


246       NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

Not  the  room  of  three  people,  I  tell  you !  But  no  one 
would  want  to  pack  a  boat  like  a  sardine-box.  There 
must  be  room  enough  to  handle  the  oars.  But  in  that 
old  ship's  boat,  even  if  she  had  been  desperately  over- 
crowded, there  was  power  (manageable  by  two  riverside 
youngsters)  to  get  away  quickly  from  a  ship's  side  (very 
important  for  your  safety  and  to  make  room  for  other 
boats),  the  power  to  keep  her  easily  head  to  sea,  the 
power  to  move  at  five  to  seven  knots  towards  a  rescu- 
ing ship,  the  power  to  come  safely  alongside.  And  all 
that  in  an  engine  which  did  not  take  up  the  room  of 
three  people. 

A  poor  boatman  who  had  to  scrape  together  painfully 
the  few  sovereigns  of  the  price  had  the  idea  of  putting 
that  engine  into  his  boat.  But  all  these  designers, 
directors,  managers,  constructors,  and  others  whom 
we  may  include  in  the  generic  name  of  Yamsi,  never 
thought  of  it  for  the  boats  of  the  biggest  tank  on  earth, 
or  rather  on  sea.  And  therefore  they  assume  an  air  of 
impatient  superiority  and  make  objections — ^however 
sick  at  heart  they  may  be.  And  I  hope  they  are;  at 
least,  as  much  as  a  grocer  v/ho  has  sold  a  tin  of  imperfect 
salmon  which  destroyed  only  half  a  dozen  people.  And 
you  know,  the  tinning  of  salmon  was  "progress"  as  much 
at  least  as  the  building  of  the  Titanic.  IMore,  in  fact. 
I  am  not  attacking  shipowners.  I  care  neither  more 
nor  less  for  Lmes,  Companies,  Combines,  and  generally 
for  Trade  arrayed  in  purple  and  fine  linen  than  the 
Trade  cares  for  me.  But  I  am  attacking  foolish  arro- 
gance, which  is  fair  game;  the  offensive  posture  of 
superiority  by  which  they  hide  the  sense  of  their  guilt 
while  the  echoes  of  the  miserably  hypocritical  cries 
along  the  alley-ways  of  that  ship :  "Any  more  women.^* 
Any  more  women?"  linger  yet  in  our  ears. 

I  have  been  expecting  from  one  or  the  other  of  them 


THE  TITANIC  INQLTRY  347 

all  bearing  the  generic  name  of  Yamsi,  something,  a 
sign  of  some  sort,  some  sincere  utterance,  in  the  course 
of  this  Admirable  Inquiry,  of  manly,  of  genuine  com- 
punction. In  vain.  All  trade  talk.  Not  a  whisper — 
except  for  the  conventional  expression  of  regret  at  the 
beginning  of  the  yearly  report — which  otherwise  is  a 
cheerful  document.  Dividends,  you  know.  The  shop 
is  doing  well. 

And  the  Admiral  Inquiry  goes  on,  punctuated  by 
idiotic  laughter,  by  paid-for  cries  of  indignation  from 
mider  legal  wigs,  bringing  to  light  tlie  psychology  of 
various  commercial  characters  too  stupid  to  know  that 
they  are  giving  themselves  away — an  admirably  labo- 
rious Inquiry  into  facts  that  speak,  nay  shout,  for  them- 
selves. 

I  am  not  a  soft-headed,  humanitarian  faddist.  I  have 
been  ordered  in  my  time  to  do  dangerous  work;  I  have 
ordered  others  to  do  dangerous  work;  I  have  never 
ordered  a  man  to  do  any  work  I  was  not  prepared  to  do 
myself.  I  attach  no  exaggerated  value  to  human  life. 
But  I  know  it  has  a  value  for  which  the  most  generous 
contributions  to  the  Mansion  House  and  "Heroes" 
funds  cannot  pay.  And  they  cannot  pay  for  it,  because 
people,  even  of  the  third  class  (excuse  my  plain  speak- 
ing), are  not  cattle.  Death  has  its  sting.  If  Yamsi's 
manager's  head  were  forcibly  held  under  the  water  of 
his  bath  for  some  little  time,  he  would  soon  discover 
that  it  has.  Some  people  can  only  learn  from  that  sort 
of  experience  which  comes  home  to  their  own  dear 
selves. 

I  am  not  a  sentimentalist;  therefore  it  is  not  a  great 
consolation  to  me  to  see  all  these  people  breveted  as 
"Heroes"  by  the  penny  and  halfpenny  Press.  It  is  no 
consolation  at  all.  In  extremity,  in  the  worst  ex- 
tremity, the  majority  of  people,  even  of  common  people, 


us        NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETTERS  ^ 

will  behave  decently.  It's  a  fact  of  which  only  the 
journalists  don't  seem  aware.  Hence  their  enthusiasm, 
I  suppose.  But  I,  who  am  not  a  sentimentalist  think 
it  would  have  been  finer  if  the  band  of  the  Titanw  had 
been  quietly  saved,  instead  of  being  drowTied  while 
playing — whatever  tune  they  were  playing,  the  poor 
devils.  I  would  rather  they  had  been  saved  to  support 
their  families  than  to  see  their  families  supported  by  the 
magnificent  generosity  of  the  subscribers.  I  am  not 
consoled  by  the  false,  T\Titten-up,  Drury  Lane  aspects 
of  that  event,  which  is  neither  drama,  nor  melodrama, 
nor  tragedy,  but  the  exposure  of  arrogant  folly.  There 
is  nothing  more  heroic  in  being  drowned  very  much 
against  your  will,  off  a  holed,  helpless,  big  tank  in  which 
you  bought  your  passage,  than  in  dying  of  colic  caused 
by  the  imperfect  salmon  in  the  tin  you  bought  from 
your  grocer. 

And  that's  the  truth.  The  unsentimental  truth 
stripped  of  the  romantic  garment  the  Press  has  wrapped 
around  this  most  unnecessary  disaster. 


PROTECTION  OF  OCEAN  LINERS » 

1914 

The  loss  of  the  Empress  of  Ireland  awakens  feelings 
somewhat  different  from  those  the  sinking  of  the  Titanic 
had  called  up  on  two  continents.  The  grief  for  the  lost 
and  tlie  sympatliy  for  the  survivors  and  the  bereaved 
are  the  same;  but  there  is  not,  and  there  cannot  be,  the 
same  undercurrent  of  indignation.  The  good  ship  that 
is  gone  (I  remember  reading  of  her  launch  something 
like  eight  years  ago)  had  not  been  ushered  in  with  beat 
of  drum  as  the  chief  wonder  of  the  world  of  waters. 
The  company  who  owned  her  had  no  agents,  authorised 
or  unauthorised,  giving  boastful  interviews  about  her 
unsinkability  to  nev/spaper  reporters  ready  to  swallow 
any  sort  of  trade  statement  if  only  sensational  enough 
for  their  readers — readers  as  ignorant  as  themselves  of 
the  nature  of  all  things  outside  the  commonest  experi- 
ence of  the  man  in  the  street. 

No;  there  was  nothing  of  that  in  her  case.  The 
company  was  content  to  have  as  fine,  staunch,  sea- 
worthy a  ship  as  the  technical  knowledge  of  that  time 
could  make  her.  In  fact,  she  was  as  safe  a  ship  as  nine 
lundred  and  ninety -nine  ships  out  of  any  thousand 
now  afloat  upon  the  sea.  No;  whatever  sorrow  one 
can  feel,  one  does  not  feel  indignation.  This  was  not 
an  accident  of  a  very  boastful  marine  transportation; 
this  was  a  real  casualty  of  the  sea.  The  indignation 
of  the  New  South  Wales  Premier  flashed  telegraphically 


I  The  loss  of  the  Empress  of  Ireland. 

249 


£50        NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

to  Canada  is  perfectly  uncalled-for.  That  statesman* 
whose  sympathy  for  poor  mates  and  seamen  is  so 
suspect  to  me  that  I  wouldn't  take  it  at  fifty  per  cent, 
discount,  does  not  seem  to  know  that  a  British  Court 
of  Marine  Inquiry,  ordinary  or  extraordinary,  is  not 
a  contrivance  for  catching  scapegoats.  I,  who  have 
been  seaman,  mate  and  master  for  twenty  years,  hold- 
ing my  certificate  under  the  Board  of  Trade,  may 
safely  say  that  none  of  us  ever  felt  in  danger  of  un- 
fair treatment  from  a  Court  of  Inquiry.  It  is  a  per- 
fectly impartial  tribunal  which  has  never  punished  sea- 
men for  the  faults  of  shipowners — as,  indeed,  it  could 
not  do  even  if  it  wanted  to.  And  there  is  another  thing 
the  angry  Premier  of  New  South  Wales  does  not  know. 
It  is  this:  that  for  a  ship  to  float  for  fifteen  minutes 
after  receiving  such  a  blow  by  a  bare  stem  on  her  bare 
side  is  not  so  bad. 

She  took  a  tremendous  list  which  made  the  minutes  of 
grace  vouchsafed  her  of  not  much  use  for  the  saving  of 
lives.  But  for  that  neither  her  owners  nor  her  officers 
are  responsible.  It  would  have  been  wonderful  if  she 
had  not  listed  with  such  a  hole  in  her  side.  Even  the 
Aquitania  with  such  an  opening  in  her  outer  hull  would 
be  bound  to  take  a  list.  I  don't  say  this  with  the  inten- 
tion of  disparaging  this  latest  "triumph  of  marine  archi- 
tecture"— to  use  the  consecrated  phrase.  The  Aquitania 
is  a  magnificent  ship.  I  believe  she  would  bear  her  peo- 
ple unscathed  through  ninety-nine  per  cent,  of  all  possi- 
ble accidents  of  the  sea.  But  suppose  a  collision  out  on 
the  ocean  involving  damage  as  extensive  as  this  one  was, 
and  suppose  then  a  gale  of  wind  coming  on.  Even  the 
Aquitania  would  not  be  quite  seaworthy,  for  she  would 
not  be  manageable. 

We  have  been  accustoming  ourselves  to  put  our  trust 
in  material,  technical  skill,   invention,  and  scientific 


PROTECTION  OF  OCEAN  LINERS       251 

contrivances  to  such  an  extent  that  we  have  come  at 
last  to  beheve  that  v/ith  these  things  we  can  overcome 
the  immortal  gods  themselves.  Hence  when  a  disaster 
like  this  happens,  there  arises,  besides  the  shock  to 
our  humane  sentiments,  a  feeling  of  irritation,  such 
as  the  hon.  gentleman  at  the  head  of  the  New  South 
Wales  Government  has  discharged  in  a  telegraphic 
flash  upon  the  world. 

But  it  is  no  use  being  angrj^  and  trying  to  hang  a 
threat  of  penal  servitude  over  the  heads  of  the  directors 
of  shipping  companies.  You  can't  get  the  better  of  the 
immortal  gods  by  the  mere  power  of  material  con- 
trivances. There  will  be  neither  scapegoats  in  this 
matter  nor  yet  penal  servitude  for  any  one.  The 
Directors  of  the  Canadian  Pacific  Railway  Company 
did  not  sell  "safety  at  sea"  to  the  people  on  board  the 
Empress  of  Ireland.  They  never  in  the  slightest  degree 
pretended  to  do  so.  What  they  did  was  to  sell  them  a 
sea-passage,  giving  very  good  value  for  the  money. 
Nothing  more.  As  long  as  men  will  travel  on  the  water, 
the  sea-gods  will  take  their  toll.  They  will  catch  good 
seamen  napping,  or  confuse  their  judgment  by  arts 
well  known  to  those  who  go  to  sea,  or  overcome  them  by 
the  sheer  brutality  of  elemental  forces.  It  seems  to  me 
that  the  resentful  sea-gods  never  do  sleep,  and  are  never 
weary;  wherein  the  seamen  who  are  mere  mortals  con- 
demned to  unending  \'igilance  are  no  match  for  them. 

And  yet  it  is  right  that  the  responsibility  should  be 
fixed.  It  is  the  fate  of  men  that  even  in  their  contests 
with  the  immortal  gods  they  must  render  an  account  of 
their  conduct.  Life  at  sea  is  the  life  in  which,  simple  as 
it  is,  you  can't  afford  to  make  mistakes. 

With  whom  the  mistake  lies  here,  is  not  for  me  to  say. 
I  see  that  Sir  Thomas  Shaughnessy  has  expressed  his 
opinion  of  Captain  Kendall's  absolute  innocence.     This 


252        NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

statement,  premature  as  it  is,  does  him  honour,  for  I 
don't  suppose  for  a  moment  that  the  thought  of  the 
material  issue  involved  in  the  verdict  of  the  Court  of 
Inquiry  influenced  him  in  the  least.  I  don't  suppose 
that  he  is  more  impressed  by  the  writ  of  2,000,000 
dollars  nailed  (or  more  likely  pasted)  to  the  foremast  of 
the  Norwegian  than  I  am,  who  don't  believe  that  the 
Storstad  is  worth  2,000,000  shillings.  This  is  merely  a 
move  of  commercial  law,  and  even  the  whole  majesty 
of  the  British  Empire  (so  finely  invoked  by  the  Sheriff) 
cannot  squeeze  more  than  a  very  moderate  quantity  of 
blood  out  of  a  stone.  Sir  Thomas,  in  liis  confident  pro- 
nouncement, stands  loyally  by  a  loyal  and  distinguished 
servant  of  his  company. 

This  thing  has  to  be  investigated  yet,  and  it  is  not 
proper  for  me  to  express  my  opinion,  though  I  have  one, 
in  this  place  and  at  this  time.  But  I  need  not  conceal 
my  sympathy  with  the  vehement  protestations  of 
Captain  Andersen.  A  charge  of  neglect  and  indifference 
in  the  matter  of  saving  lives  is  the  cruellest  blow  that 
can  be  aimed  at  the  character  of  a  seaman  worthy  of  the 
name.  On  the  face  of  the  facts  as  known  up  to  now  the 
charge  does  not  seem  to  be  true.  If  upwards  of  three 
hundred  people  have  been,  as  stated  in  the  last  reports, 
saved  by  the  Storstad,  tlien  that  ship  must  have  been 
at  hand  and  rendering  all  the  assistance  in  her  power. 

As  to  tlie  point  whicli  must  come  up  for  the  decision 
of  the  Court  of  Inquiry,  it  is  as  fine  as  a  hair.  The  two 
ships  saw  each  other  plainly  enough  before  the  fog 
closed  on  them.  No  one  can  question  Captain  Ken- 
dall's prudence.  He  has  been  as  prudent  as  ever  he 
could  be.     There  is  not  a  shadov/  of  doubt  as  to  that. 

But  there  is  this  question:  Accepting  the  position  of 
the  two  ships  when  they  saw  each  other  as  correctly 
described  in  the  very  latest  newspaper  reports,  it  seems 


PROTECTION  OF  OCEAIs   LINERS       253 

clear  that  it  was  the  Empress  of  Ireland's  duty  to  keep 
clear  of  the  collier,  and  what  the  Court  will  have  to 
decide  is  whether  the  stopping  of  the  liner  was,  under 
the  circumstances,  the  best  way  of  keeping  her  clear  of 
the  other  ship,  which  had  tlie  right  to  proceed  cau- 
tiously on  an  unclianged  course. 

This,  reduced  to  its  simplest  expression,  is  the  ques- 
tion which  the  Court  will  have  to  decide. 

And  now,  apart  from  all  problems  of  manoeuvring,  of 
rules  of  the  road,  of  the  judgment  of  the  men  in  com- 
mand, away  from  their  possible  errors  and  from  the 
points  the  Court  v/ill  have  to  decide,  if  we  ask  ourselves 
what  it  was  that  was  needed  to  avert  this  disaster  cost- 
ing so  many  lives,  spreading  so  much  sorrow,  and  to  a 
certain  point  shocking  the  public  conscience — if  we  ask 
that  question,  what  is  the  answer  to  be.'* 

I  hardly  dare  set  it  down.  Yes;  what  was  it  thai 
was  needed,  what  ingenious  combinations  of  ship- 
building, what  transverse  bulkheads,  what  skill,  what 
genius — ^how  much  expense  in  money  and  trained  think- 
ing, what  learned  contriving,  to  avert  that  disaster.'' 

To  save  that  ship,  all  these  lives,  so  much  anguish 
for  the  dying,  and  so  much  grief  for  the  bereaved,  all 
that  was  needed  in  this  particular  case  in  the  way  of 
science,  money,  ingenuity,  and  seamanship  was  a  man 
and  a  cork-fender. 

Yes;  a  man,  a  quartermaster,  an  able  seaman  that 
would  know  how  to  jump  to  an  order  and  was  not  an 
excitable  fool.  In  my  time  at  sea  there  was  no  lack  of 
men  in  British  ships  who  could  jump  to  an  order  and 
were  not  excitable  fools.  As  to  the  so-called  cork-fen- 
der, it  is  a  sort  of  soft  balloon  made  from  a  net  of  thick 
rope  rather  more  than  a  foot  in  diameter.  It  is  such 
a  long  time  since  I  have  indented  for  cork-fenders  that 
I  don't  remember  how  much  these  things  cost  apiece. 


254        NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

One  of  them,  hung  judiciously  over  the  side  at  the  end 
of  its  lanyard  by  a  man  who  knew  what  he  was  about, 
might  perhaps  have  saved  from  destruction  the  ship 
and  upwards  of  a  thousand  lives. 

Two  men  with  a  heavy  rope-fender  would  have  been 
better,  but  even  the  other  one  might  have  made  all  the 
difference  between  a  very  damaging  accident  and  down- 
right disaster.  By  the  time  the  cork-fender  had  been 
squeezed  between  the  liner's  side  and  the  bluff  of  the 
Siorstad's  bow,  the  effect  of  the  latter's  reversed  pro- 
peller would  have  been  produced,  and  the  ships  would 
have  come  apart  with  no  more  damage  than  bulged 
and  started  plates.  Wasn't  there  lying  about  on  that 
liner's  bridge,  fitted  with  all  sorts  of  scientific  contriv- 
ances, a  couple  of  simple  and  effective  cork-fenders — 
or  on  board  of  that  Norwegian  either.'^  There  must 
have  been,  since  one  ship  was  just  out  cf  a  dock  or 
harbour  and  the  other  just  arriving.  That  is  the  time, 
if  ever,  when  cork-fenders  are  lying  about  a  ship's 
decks.  And  there  was  plenty  of  time  to  use  them,  and 
exactly  in  the  conditions  in  which  such  fenders  are  effect- 
ively used.  The  water  was  as  smooth  as  in  any  dock; 
one  ship  was  motionless,  the  other  just  moving  at  what 
may  be  called  dock-speed  when  entering,  leaving,  or 
shifting  berths;  and  from  the  moment  the  collision  was 
seen  to  be  unavoidable  till  the  actual  contact  a  whole 
minute  elapsed,  A  minute, — an  age  under  the  circum- 
stances. And  no  one  thought  of  the  homely  expedient 
of  dropping  a  simple,  unpretending  rope-fender  be- 
tween the  destiTJCtive  stem  and  the  defenceless  side! 

I  appeal  confidently  to  all  the  seamen  in  the  still 
United  Kingdom,  from  his  Majesty  the  King  (who  has 
been  really  at  sea)  to  the  youngest  intelligent  A.B.  in 
any  ship  that  will  dock  next  tide  in  the  ports  of  this 
realm,  whether  there  was  not  a  chance  there.     I  have 


PROTECTION  OF  OCEAN  LINERS       255 

followed  the  sea  for  more  than  twenty  years;  I  have 
seen  collisions;  I  have  been  involved  in  a  collision 
myself;  and  I  do  believe  that  in  the  case  under  con- 
sideration this  little  thing  would  have  made  all  that 
enormous  difference — the  difference  between  consid- 
erable damage  and  an  appalling  disaster. 

Many  letters  have  been  written  to  the  Press  on  the 
subject  of  collisions.  I  have  seen  some.  They  contain 
many  suggestions,  valuable  and  otherwise;  but  there  is 
only  one  which  hits  the  nail  on  the  head.  It  is  a  letter 
to  the  Times  from  a  retired  Captain  of  the  Royal  NavJ^ 
It  is  printed  in  small  type,  but  it  deserved  to  be  printed 
in  letters  of  gold  and  crimson.  The  writer  suggests  that 
all  steamers  should  be  obliged  by  law  to  carry  hung  over 
their  stem  what  we  at  sea  call  a  "pudding." 

This  solution  of  the  problem  is  as  wonderful  in  its 
simplicity  as  the  celebrated  trick  of  Columbus's  egg, 
and  infinitely  more  useful  to  mankind.  A  "pudding" 
is  a  thing  something  like  a  bolster  of  stout  rope-net 
stuffed  with  old  junk,  but  thicker  in  the  middle  than  at 
the  ends.  It  can  be  seen  on  almost  every  tug  working  in 
our  docks.  It  is,  in  fact,  a  fixed  rope-fender  alvv'ays  in 
a  position  where  presumably  it  would  do  most  good. 
Had  the  Storstad  carried  such  a  "pudding"  proportion- 
ate to  her  size  (say,  two  feet  diameter  in  the  thickest 
part)  across  her  stem,  and  hung  above  the  level  of  her 
hawse-pipes,  there  would  have  been  an  accident  cer- 
tainly, and  some  repair-work  for  the  nearest  ship-yard, 
but  there  would  have  been  no  loss  of  life  to  deplore. 

It  seems  almost  too  simple  to  be  true,  but  I  assure 
you  that  the  statement  is  as  true  as  anything  can  be. 
We  shall  see  whether  the  lesson  will  be  taken  to  heart. 
We  shall  see.  There  is  a  Conunission  of  learned  men 
sitting  to  consider  the  subject  of  saving  life  at  sea. 
They  are  discussing  bulkheads,  boats,  davits,  manning. 


256        NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

navigation,  but  I  am  willing  to  bet  that  not  one  of  them 
has  thought  of  the  humble  "pudding."  They  can 
make  what  rules  they  like.  We  shall  see  if,  with  that 
disaster  calling  aloud  to  them,  they  will  make  the  rule 
that  every  steamship  should  carry  a  permanent  fender 
across  her  stem,  from  two  to  four  feet  in  diameter  in  its 
thickest  part  in  proportion  to  the  size  of  the  ship.  But 
perhaps  they  may  think  the  thing  too  rough  and  un- 
sightly for  this  scientific  and  Aesthetic  age.  It  certainly 
won't  look  very  pretty  but  I  make  bold  to  say  it  will 
save  more  lives  at  sea  than  any  amount  of  the  Marconi 
installations  which  are  being  forced  on  the  shipowner.* 
on  that  very  ground — the  safety  of  lives  at  sea. 
We  shall  see ! 

To  the  Editor  of  the  Daily  Express. 

Sm, 

As  I  fully  expected,  this  morning's  post  brought  me 
not  a  few  letters  on  the  subject  of  that  article  of  mine 
in  the  Illustrated  London  News.  And  they  are  very 
much  what  I  expected  them  to  be. 

I  shall  address  my  reply  to  Captain  Littlehales, 
since  obviously  he  can  speak  with  authority,  and 
speaks  in  his  own  name,  not  under  a  pseudonym. 
And  also  for  the  reason  that  it  is  no  use  talking  to  men 
who  tell  you  to  shut  your  head  for  a  confounded  fool. 
They  are  not  likely  to  listen  to  you. 

But  if  there  be  in  Liverpool  anybody  not  too  angry 
to  listen,  I  want  to  assure  him  or  them  that  my  ex- 
clam.atory  line,  "Was  there  no  one  on  board  either  of 
these  ships  to  think  of  dropping  a  fender — etc."  was  not 
uttered  in  the  spirit  of  blame  for  any  one.  I  would 
not  dream  of  blaming  a  seaman  for  doing  or  omitting 
to  do  anything  a  person  sitting  in  a  perfectly  safe  and 


PROTECTION  OF  OCEAN  LINERS      257 

unsinkable  study  may  think  of.  All  my  sympathy 
goes  to  the  two  captains;  much  the  greater  share  of  it 
to  Captain  Kendall,  who  has  lost  his  ship  and  whose 
load  of  responsibility  was  so  much  heavier !  I  may  not 
know  a  great  deal,  but  I  know  how  anxious  and  per- 
plexing are  those  nearly  end-on  approaches,  so  infinitely 
more  trying  to  the  men  in  charge  than  a  frank  right- 
angle  crossing. 

I  may  begin  by  reminding  Captain  Littlehales  that  I, 
as  well  as  himself,  have  had  to  form  my  opinion,  or 
rather  my  vision,  of  the  accident,  from  printed  state- 
ments, of  which  many  must  have  been  loose  and  inexact, 
and  none  could  have  been  minutely  circumstantial.  I 
have  read  the  reports  of  the  Times  and  the  Daily 
Telegraph,  and  no  others.  What  stands  in  the  columns 
of  tliese  papers  is  responsible  for  my  conclusion — or 
perhaps  for  the  state  of  my  feelings  when  I  wrote  the 
Illustrated  London  News  article. 

From  these  sober  and  unsensational  reports,  I  derived 
the  impression  that  this  collision  was  a  collision  of  the 
slowest  sort.  I  take  it,  of  course,  that  both  the  men  in 
charge  speak  the  strictest  truth  as  to  preliminary  facts. 
We  know  that  the  Empress  of  Ireland  was  for  a  time 
lying  motionless.  And  if  the  captain  of  the  Storstad 
stopped  his  engines  directly  the  fog  came  on  (as  he  says 
he  did),  then  taking  into  account  the  adverse  current  of 
the  river,  the  Storstad,  by  the  time  the  two  ships 
sighted  each  other  again,  must  have  been  barely  moving 
over  the  ground.  The  "over  tlie  ground"  speed  is  the 
only  one  that  matters  in  this  discussion.  In  fact,  I 
represented  her  to  myself  as  just  creeping  on  ahead — no 
more.  This,  I  contend,  is  an  imaginative  view  (and  we 
can  form  no  other)  not  utterly  absurd  for  a  seaman  to 
adopt. 

So  much  for  the  imaginative  view  of  the  sad  occur- 


258        NOTES  ON  IJFE  AND  LETTERS 

rence  which  caused  me  to  speak  of  the  fender,  and  be 
chided  for  it  in  unmeasured  terms.  Not  by  Captain 
Littlehales,  however,  and  I  wish  to  reply  to  what  he 
says  with  all  possible  deference.  His  illustration  bor- 
rowed from  boxing  is  very  apt,  and  in  a  certain  sense 
makes  for  my  contention.  Yes.  A  blow  delivered  with 
a  boxing-glove  will  draw  blood  or  knock  a  man  out;  but 
it  would  not  crush  in  his  nose  flat  or  break  his  jaw  for 
him — at  least,  not  always.  And  this  is  exactly  my 
point. 

Twice  in  my  sea  life  I  have  had  occasion  to  be  im- 
pressed by  the  preserving  effect  of  a  fender.  Once  I 
was  myself  the  man  who  dropped  it  over.  Not  because 
I  was  so  very  clever  or  smart,  but  simply  because  I 
happened  to  be  at  hand.  And  I  agree  with  Captain 
Littlehales  that  to  see  a  steamer's  stem  coming  at  you 
at  the  rate  of  only  two  knots  is  a  staggering  experience. 
The  thing  seems  to  have  power  enough  behind  it  to  cut 
half  through  the  terrestrial  globe. 

And  perhaps  Captain  Littlehales  is  right?  It  may 
be  that  I  am  mistaken  in  my  appreciation  of  circum- 
stances and  possibilities  in  this  case — or  in  any  such  case. 
Perhaps  what  was  really  wanted  there  was  an  extraor- 
dinary man  and  an  extraordinary  fender.  I  care  noth- 
ing if  possibly  my  deep  feeling  has  betrayed  me  into 
something  which  some  people  call  absurdity. 

Absurd  was  the  word  applied  to  the  proposal  for 
carrying  "enough  boats  for  all"  on  board  the  big  liners. 
And  my  absurdity  can  affect  no  lives,  break  no  bones — 
need  make  no  one  angry.  Why  should  I  care,  then,  as 
long  as  out  of  the  discussion  of  my  absurdity  there  will 
emerge  the  acceptance  of  the  suggestion  of  Captain  F. 
Papillon,  R.  N.,  for  the  universal  and  compulsory  fit- 
ting of  very  heavy  collision  fenders  on  the  stems  of  all 
mechanically  propelled  ships.? 


PROTECTION  OF  OCEAN  LINERS       259 

An  extraordinary  man  we  cannot  always  get  from 
heaven  on  order,  but  an  extraordinary  fender  that  will 
do  its  work  is  well  within  the  power  of  a  committee  of 
old  boatswains  to  plan  out,  make,  and  place  in  position. 
I  beg  to  ask,  not  in  a  provocative  spirit,  but  simply  as  to 
a  matter  of  fact  which  he  is  better  qualified  to  judge 
than  I  am — Will  Captain  Littlehales  affirm  that  if  the 
Storstad  had  carried,  slung  securely  across  the  stem,  even 
nothing  thicker  than  a  single  bale  of  wool  (an  ordinary, 
hand-pressed,  Australian  wool-bale),  it  would  have 
made  no  difference? 

If  scientific  men  can  invent  an  air  cushion,  a  gas 
cushion,  or  even  an  electricity  cushion  (with  wires  or 
without),  to  fit  neatly  round  the  stems  and  bows  of 
ships,  then  let  them  go  to  work  in  God's  name  and 
produce  another  "marvel  of  science"  without  loss  of 
time.  For  something  like  this  has  long  been  due — too 
long  for  the  credit  of  that  part  of  mankind  which  is  not 
absurd,  and  in  which  I  include,  among  others,  such 
people  as  marine  underwriters,  for  instance. 

Meanwhile,  turning  to  materials  I  am  familiar  with,  I 
woiJd  put  my  trust  in  canvas,  lots  of  big  rope,  and  in 
large,  very  large  quantities  of  old  junk. 

It  sounds  awfully  primitive,  but  if  it  will  mitigate 
the  mischief  in  only  fifty  per  cent,  of  cases,  is  it  not  well 
worth  trying?  Most  collisions  occur  at  slow  speeds,  and 
it  ought  to  be  remembered  that  in  case  of  a  big  liner's 
loss,  involving  many  lives,  she  is  generally  sunk  by  a 
ship  much  smaller  than  herself. 

Joseph  Conkad. 


A  FRIENDLY  PLACE 

Eighteen  years  have  passed  since  I  last  set  foot  in 
the  London  Sailors'  Home.  I  was  not  staying  there 
then ;  I  had  gone  in  to  try  to  find  a  man  I  wanted  to  see. 
He  was  one  of  those  able  seamen  who,  in  a  watch,  are  a 
perfect  blessing  to  a  young  oflBcer.  I  could  perhaps 
remember  here  and  there  among  the  shadows  of  my  sea- 
life  a  more  daring  man,  or  a  more  agile  man,  or  a  man 
more  expert  in  some  si)ecial  branch  of  his  calling — 
such  as  wire  splicing,  for  instance;  but  for  all-round 
competence,  he  was  unequalled.  As  character  he  was 
sterling  stuff.  His  name  was  Anderson.  He  had  a 
fine,  quiet  face,  kindly  eyes,  and  a  voice  which  matched 
that  something  attractive  in  the  whole  man.  Though 
he  looked  yet  in  the  prime  of  life,  shoulders,  chest, 
limbs  untouched  by  decay,  and  though  his  hair  and 
moustache  were  only  iron-grey,  he  was  on  board  ship 
generally  called  Old  Andy  by  his  fellows.  He  accepted 
the  name  with  some  complacency. 

I  made  my  enquiry  at  the  highly  glazed  entry  office. 
The  clerk  on  duty  opened  an  enormous  ledger,  and  after 
running  his  finger  down  a  page,  informed  me  that  Ander- 
son had  gone  to  sea  a  week  before,  in  a  ship  bound  round 
the  Horn.  Then,  smiling  at  me,  he  added:  "Old 
Andy.     We  know  him  well,  here.     "What  a  nice  fellow !" 

I,  who  knew  what  a  "good  man,"  in  a  sailor  sense,  he 
was,  assented  without  reserve.  Heaven  only  knows 
when,  if  ever,  he  came  back  from  that  voyage,  to  the 
Sailors'  Home  of  which  he  was  a  faithful  client. 

260 


A  FRIENDLY  PLACE  261 

I  went  out  glad  to  know  he  was  safely  at  sea,  but 
sorry  not  to  have  seen  him;  though,  indeed,  if  I  had,  we 
would  not  have  exchanged  more  than  a  score  of  words, 
perhaps.  He  was  not  a  talkative  man,  Old  Andy, 
whose  affectionate  sliip-name  clung  to  him  even  in  that 
Sailors'  Home,  where  the  staff  understood  and  liked  tlie 
sailors  (those  men  without  a  home)  and  did  its  duty  by 
them  with  an  unobtrusive  tact,  with  a  patient  and 
humorous  sense  of  their  idiosyncrasies,  to  which  I 
hasten  to  testify  now,  when  the  very  existence  of  that 
institution  is  menaced  after  so  many  years  of  m.ost 
useful  work. 

Walking  away  from  it  on  that  day  eighteen  years  ago, 
I  was  far  from  thinking  it  was  for  the  last  time.  Great 
changes  have  come  since,  over  land  and  sea;  and  if  I 
were  to  seek  somebody  v/ho  knew  Old  Andy  it  would  be 
(of  all  people  in  the  world)  JMr.  John  Galsworthy. 
For  !Mr.  John  Galsworthy,  Andy,  and  myself  have  been 
shipmates  together  in  our  different  stations,  for  some 
forty  days  in  the  Lidian  Ocean  in  the  early  nineties. 
And,  but  for  us  two,  Old  Andy's  very  memory  would 
be  gone  from  this  changing  earth. 

Yes,  things  have  changed — the  very  sky,  the  atmos- 
phere, the  hght  of  judgment  which  falls  on  the  labours 
of  men,  either  splendid  or  obscure.  Having  been  asked 
to  say  a  word  to  the  public  on  behalf  of  the  Sailors' 
Home,  I  felt  immensely  flattered — and  troubled. 
Flattered  to  have  been  thought  or  ia  that  connection; 
troubled  to  find  myself  in  touch  again  with  tliat  past  so 
deeply  rooted  in  my  heart.  And  the  illusion  of  nearness 
is  so  great  while  I  trace  these  lines  that  I  feel  as  if  I  were 
speaking  in  the  name  of  that  worthy  Sailor-Shade  of  Gld 
Andy,  whose  faithfully  hard  life  seems  to  my  vision  a 
thing  of  yesterday. 

V  V  'r  V  T* 


262        NOTES  ON  LIFE  AND  LETrERS 

But  thougli  the  past  keeps  firm  hold  on  one,  yet  one 
feels  with  the  same  warmth  that  the  men  and  the 
institutions  of  to-day  have  their  merit  and  their  claims. 
Others  will  loiow  hov/  to  set  forth  before  the  pubHc  the 
merit  of  the  Sailors'  Home  in  the  eloquent  terms  of  hard 
facts  and  some  few  figures.  For  myself,  I  can  only 
bring  a  personal  note,  give  a  glimpse  of  the  human  side 
of  the  good  work  for  sailors  ashore,  carried  on  through 
so  many  decades  with  a  perfect  understanding  of  the 
end  in  view.  I  have  been  in  touch  with  the  Sailors* 
Home  for  sixteen  years  of  my  life,  off  and  on;  I  have 
seen  the  changes  in  the  staff  and  I  have  observed  the 
subtle  alterations  in  the  physiognomy  of  that  stream  of 
sailors  passing  through  it,  in  from  the  sea  and  out  again 
to  sea,  between  the  years  1878  and  1894.  I  have  listened 
to  the  talk  on  the  decks  of  ships  in  all  latitudes,  when  its 
name  would  turn  up  frequently,  and  if  I  had  to  charac- 
terise its  good  work  in  one  sentence,  I  would  say  that, 
for  seamen,  the  Well  Street  Home  was  a  friendly  place. 

It  was  essentially  just  that;  quietly,  unobtrusively, 
with  a  regard  for  the  independence  of  the  men  who 
sought  its  shelter  ashore,  and  with  no  ulterior  aims  be- 
hind that  effective  friendliness.  No  small  merit  this. 
And  its  claim  on  tlie  generosity  of  the  public  is  derived 
from  a  long  record  of  valuable  public  service.  Since 
we  are  all  agreed  that  the  men  of  the  Merchant  Service 
are  a  national  asset  worthy  of  care  and  sympathy,  the 
public  could  express  this  sympathy  no  better  than  by 
enabling  the  Sailors'  Home,  so  useful  in  the  past,  to 
continue  its  friendly  offices  to  the  seamen  of  future 
generations. 

THX  KNB 


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